Some Light at the End
by the ramblin rose
Summary: AU but ZA Caryl. Life and death both will bring darkness, but we survive it by holding onto the promise that there will always be some light at the end.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: So with stories wrapping up, I'm putting this out there as the start of another of the two Caryl stories that will be filling in the spaces of the ones I'm working to finish at the moment.**

**This one is quite different than any that I've written before in that Daryl and Carol didn't meet at the quarry. Their meeting is going to be quite different from that. It is a Caryl story, though there is going to be mention of other relationships because of the way in which the story is structured and where we find Carol at the moment. There's nothing explicit, though. **

**I have an anonymous source who gave me some ideas about this one, and I think it will be interesting and different. **

**There will be mentions of violence, and some at least slightly explicit violence, so you should be aware of that. There is also mention/discussion of domestic abuse.**

**I hope you enjoy if you decide to read! Let me know what you think!**

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So many promises made by the world ended the same way, no matter how the story started. There would be darkness, it would be unavoidable, but ultimately it was only to be survived because, at the end of whatever darkness there was, there would be light. And the light would always mark the beginning of something...some new life, some new beginning, some long awaited promise land...something better at the end of the long suffered dark.

She was no stranger to the darkness.

Now she wandered in it, lost and alone. Sometimes she was searching, others she was simply existing. The promised light, it seemed, was nothing more than a lie because every time she'd opened her eyes lately to find it, she'd simply craved the return to the dark.

_Mama...Mama..._

The sound could penetrate even the blackest dark. That sound had been the light for the almost twelve years since she'd first heard the very first cries that precious soul had offered the world...so much more powerful then than the soft, sad sobs that accompanied the most beautiful word she'd ever heard spoken.

And the need to comfort and quiet those sobs was enough to pull her back, now, from the darkness into the light that offered none of the comfort she'd been taught to expect from it.

"Well, there you are!" His voice declared. Just the sound of it now was enough to turn her stomach and she might have done more than gag if there were anything at all left in her stomach to rid it of. "Thought we mighta lost you this time, but you fall for it every time, don't you? The recording...I can't blame you, though. It is a beautiful sound."

"Please?" She managed to spit out, the voice that said it no longer belonging to her. It belonged entirely, now, to the body that hadn't truly been hers for so long. "Please? Sophia?"

"Are you thirsty? I bet you're thirsty," he said.

She couldn't move most of her body. Her time spent wandering in the dark left her without a clear recollection of the time that had passed when she could. Her head was free from restraint, but she lacked the strength to move it.

He waved a water bottle inches in front of her eyes. The burning thirst in her meant even the suggestion of the liquid inspired her eyes to involuntarily spend some of their precious moisture in tearing over the prospect.

"Hey, don't cry," he said, wiping at her eyes with his hand. At this point she'd reached the point of barely even flinching at his touch. There was no need. There was no escape anyway. "I'm not a bad guy," he said, pouring a small trickle of the water that was so long desired that it tasted cool and sweet, regardless of its true characteristics. "A little at a time...no more of that nonsense of throwing up on me."

He trickled more of the liquid into her mouth.

Sometimes she rose out of the dark to the water, sometimes to bites of food fed to her like she was an infant, and sometimes to a syringe promising a quick sting and then the glory of a few moments of bliss where the ever present pain was dulled.

_Because he wasn't a bad man._

And she would be expected to remember that when the next wave of pain crashed into her at his hands.

"Please don't hurt her...please..." She begged when her parched throat was dampened slightly. "Please..."

He smiled at her. He laughed low in his throat and she only flinched slightly when he gently wiped her face with the wet rag that had drank in more water than her thirsting body had.

"Please…" she begged again. It was the word that she said most often. She heard herself saying it now, even in the darkness.

There was the smile again. It was a mocking smile. It laughed at her suffering and then told her that she had no right to feel that way because he wasn't a bad man. He didn't want her to suffer.

"I don't want to hurt her, I really don't," he said. "And I haven't…yet…but you're going to have to cooperate with me. Do you think you can cooperate with me this time? End all this nasty business?"

He trickled more of the water into her mouth and she choked on it so he pushed her face to the side to keep her from asphyxiating.

He did these things to take care of her. He did them to remind her that he wasn't a bad man. He was keeping her alive. He wasn't letting her die.

And that's how she knew he wasn't a very good person at all, because at this point the most humane thing, at least in her opinion, would be to let her die if he wasn't going to let her go. Still, she held on because as he had her for the sick entertainment he seemed to find in torturing her, he would leave Sophia alone…and Carol could only hope that she was safe. She was, at this point, doing all that she could for her daughter.

"I don't know anything I didn't know before," Carol said.

He offered her more of the water.

"How could I? I haven't talked to anyone! I haven't seen anyone! I don't even know where I am!" Carol got out, starting to feel overcome with her own desperate situation.

"Nobody leaves Woodbury, Carol," He said, his voice still holding the oddly calm sound that he seemed to be able to give it with a moment's notice. The smile returned to his lips. Carol hated that she'd never seen through the smile before. She hated that once she'd thought this man was some kind of savior. Once she'd thought he was so charismatic, so charming. He was their Governor, and he would save them all from all the evil that was outside their walls.

_But now Carol knew that they really needed saving from within._

"At least," he said, rubbing her face with his hand as though they were affectionate enough for such a gesture to be comforting to her, "nobody leaves and lives to tell about it. Tell me where he went, and tell me why he took what he took."

"I swear," Carol said. "I swear I don't know. I didn't know anything about it. Nothing. I don't even know what he took. Ed never told me anything…"

_And it was true._

They had found Woodbury on accident. They'd left a group that they were with, just after their car had finally reached the end of the journey it would be willing to make with them, because Ed had some run in with one of the men. The man had tried to stop Ed from punishing Carol for not having the tent set like he wanted, not having it prepared for the moment he wanted to lie down, and Ed had fought with the man. The group had asked them to leave, then, and Ed had gladly done so because he wasn't going to have anyone telling him how to live his life or how to handle his wife and child.

They'd been caught in a swarm of Walkers not a day later. There had been far too many for them to fight off and Carol was certain that they were all going to die there, torn up by the creatures. But then, out of absolutely nowhere, some men had appeared and they'd cleared the Walkers. They'd taken Carol, Ed, and Sophia back with them to Woodbury.

And Carol had thought that she was in heaven, honestly. Sophia was going to school. Everyone in Woodbury worked and Carol took on every odd job that they needed her for. Ed was appointed some kind of right hand to the Governor. Because of his position, everyone looked the other way when Ed beat her. They didn't call attention to any of her injuries. Even if she needed to go to the clinic, it didn't matter. Everyone pretended they were perfectly normal and naturally occurring…and as odd as it may have sounded to say it, that made Carol happy, simply because it meant that the beatings weren't compounded by the irritation that Ed felt when he thought someone was "judging" him without knowing all that he suffered by simply putting up with her.

Truthfully, the beatings even lessened in frequency while they were there. Ed was happier than he'd been in a long time. As far as Carol knew, he loved his job. He loved Woodbury and he would have served the Governor in any way that he could. She never even asked what he did because that professional happiness, no matter where it came from, lessened the frequency and severity of the abuse that she suffered.

_She had been grateful to the Governor and grateful to the people of Woodbury._

That was, until the day that Ed had gone for work and hadn't returned, even well past curfew. Carol hadn't thought much of it until it was time to turn down the lights. She'd put Sophia to be and she'd put Ed's food in the warming box to keep until he came, and she'd sat on her couch to work through some of the mending that she'd been given to "help out" a little more. Ed was often late, and there were times that he didn't even come home at all. All the women understood that these were always things that were tied to the well-being of their community and happened form time to time, and if your husband was someone who worked closely with the Governor? Well, they were likely to happen a lot more often.

She hadn't thought much about it at all until Merle Dixon called at her house, well past curfew. She'd hesitated to even open the door, knowing that was grounds in itself for punishment from Ed should he find out, but she finally had opened the door since Merle was another of the Governor's right hand men. He'd asked her if Ed was around, and she'd informed him that he wasn't. She assumed he must have been on a vacation day or something of the like, so she'd explained to him that Ed had gone into work and he simply hadn't come home yet. She'd said that, like most nights they were gone this late, she assumed he simply might not be coming in until the next day. He'd accepted her explanation of her husband's whereabouts and he'd gone on his way. She'd started getting herself ready for bed, now accepting her own explanation. Ed was working, he'd probably be gone overnight, and she should sleep since it was past curfew.

But then the Governor had come to the door. She'd opened the door without hesitation…it was the Governor. She'd half expected, and dare she think of it, half hoped, that he might be calling with some kind of tragic news. They'd been out on a run, they'd been doing this or that, and Ed had met his demise.

Carol was more than prepared to play the grieving widow for however long she had to…but she wasn't going to miss Ed Peletier when he was gone. Whatever love she'd had for him, and she was sure it had been there once, was long since dead.

But he'd come with questions, instead. They were questions that she couldn't answer. They were questions that, to some degree, she couldn't even understand. He wanted to know Ed's whereabouts, and he wanted to know something about what Ed had taken. Carol hadn't known anything about Ed taking a thing, but she'd offered the same explanation of his whereabouts that she'd given Merle Dixon.

And that's when she'd found out that the Governor hadn't come alone.

Men she'd trusted, men she'd dined with, men she'd thought of as, if not friends, at least _good_ men that were looking out for her well-being and her daughter's well-being against the cruelty of the world out there? They'd all come in her home. They'd ransacked it. They'd tried to take her daughter, and when she'd tried to fight against them? They'd taken her too, though in her unconscious state she wasn't exactly sure, now, where she was.

She wasn't even sure if she was in Woodbury anymore.

All she knew was that he wanted information from her about Ed. He wanted information that she didn't have to offer him, and he would do anything he had to in order to get it.

And he had Sophia, or at least he said he did.

_But she had nothing to fear every time she returned to the darkness. After all, there had to be some light at the end, and he was a good man. _


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Sophia could be a _good girl_ just like the man that she fully knew was crazy wanted her to be. She could be quiet when he wanted her to be quiet, sitting near him on the footstool that he'd designated as her "chair" and rocking and cuddling the doll that he'd given her because it pleased him to see her "happy" with her present.

She could speak when spoken to like he wanted. She could say "Yes, Daddy" until her tongue was tired from the repetition of the words. She could say "I love you, Daddy" when he signaled that it was the proper response.

_And she could say it when he didn't signal it because the words calmed him down. The words soothed him. The words made a change in him, even if it was temporary._

Because the man that she fully knew was crazy told her that, if she wanted her mama to be safe, and if she wanted to see her alive, she'd be a _good girl_ and she'd do exactly as she was told.

So that's what Sophia was going to do. At least as much as she possibly could.

Because he promised her that if she did that, and if she was patient and didn't cause him any problem, that he'd give her whatever it took to make her happy. He would make sure that she had everything she wanted. He would make sure that her life was everything she might want it to be. She could have anything she wanted, so long as she was a good girl.

And the only thing she wanted was her mama.

The man might have frightened her, but he didn't. She might have been afraid of his shifting moods and the fact that when he left the room that he'd commanded she stay in, he was always different than when he returned. Except Sophia knew that men were typically that way. She knew, at least, that's how her Daddy had always been. It had always been almost impossible to expect how he would be.

When he came home from work, would he kiss her mama "hello" after his day? Or would he come home and offer her another bruise to go with the ones that were trying to heal on her face from the other bad days?

And Sophia had learned, just as surely as she'd learned anything else, how to be a good girl for her mama's sake.

Because if she wasn't good? If she made too much noise when noise wasn't desired or if she spoke out of turn on a day when it wasn't allowed? Then she could be the one to cause her mama to cry…and she knew she cried, no matter how hard she tried to hide it from her. Her mama had never realized that sending Sophia to her room might have hid the sight of things, but it didn't hide the sound.

So if being a good girl now was all that Sophia had to do to make the man happy and to get her mama back, then she could be a good girl. She could do anything that he wanted.

Except she wasn't sure that it was all she had to do.

Because she didn't know how long it had been since she'd seen her mama, but it had been too long. It had been longer than the man promised when he first started promising that he'd bring her back. It had been long enough that Sophia was beginning to fear that he was lying to her…and that he wasn't keeping her mama safe somewhere until things that had to be done, things that hadn't been explained to her, were finished, and they were allowed to be together again.

Sophia had begged him, time and time again, just to let her see her mama. She had promised to be good. She'd promised not to cry. She'd promised not to even ask for more than that. And he hadn't given her even that.

So Sophia was beginning to think that maybe it was all a lie. And if it was? Then she'd decided that her mama might need her.

But if she was going to go after her mama? If she was going to do what would probably constitute being a very _bad girl_ in the eyes of the man that she knew was fully crazy?

Then she was going to have to do it without getting caught. Because she'd been the cause of her mama getting hurt before, but she wasn't going to be the cause of it this time.

Tonight they were all down at the show. Tonight the man had left her alone because the show would be too _much_ for her. And tonight she had plans of her own.

Sophia slipped out of the room, careful not to close the door because it locked from the outside, she didn't have a key, and she didn't know if she might have to re-enter it quickly, and she found her way out of the apartment that the man called home.

She didn't know where her mama was, but she knew from her Daddy, her real Daddy at least, that there was a prison there. It was a place she'd heard him mention in discussions with other men. It was a place that was tucked up under the buildings of the town. It was where they held everyone that was dangerous, or at least might be dangerous, until they'd been to trial and knew what to do with them.

She didn't know where her mama was, but she figured with the way the man acted, that was as good a place to start as any.

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The whole world had gone to hell in a hand basket. That's what they said, right? That everything was going to hell in a hand basket?

Well if that was the case, they were pretty much there.

Daryl had always been a person who appreciated time to think about what he was doing. These days? These days it seemed there wasn't much time to think about anything, and their lack of planning seemed to be getting them all fucked at every turn.

The smell of smoke was strong enough to choke him and it was so dark that he could barely see his brother with barely enough distance between them to keep him from running right into Merle's broad back. He didn't even know, anymore, where the hell they were. They were running like rats in a maze…rats in a burning maze even…and the only thing he could do was try _not to think_ and to just keep running, hoping that Merle knew where the hell they were, where the hell they were going, and how the hell to get them out. There had to be an end to the tunnel.

The world had gone to hell in a hand basket and it was all downhill from there. Daryl was living in a prison right now. Ironic since that's where most people had figured him and his brother both would end up. Except things were different now. Now instead of hoping to get out, he was hoping to stay there…he was hoping that they eventually got out of this tight, dark, smoky space and found their way _safely _inside the prison walls.

_Life could be pretty damn ironic. _

The only good thing that had come out of this was that he'd found his brother. That in itself was something that Daryl hadn't even had time to comprehend. He'd never expected it to happen, but there he was. Merle was alive. Daryl had become almost convinced that he was dead…or that even if he wasn't dead, he was just _gone_.

And Daryl had experience with people simply being _gone_.

He didn't even pretend that he didn't know why the smell of smoke and fire bothered him. He didn't pretend that he wasn't fully aware of why it choked him far more than it should, especially given that the fires probably weren't as close to them as his mind might make him believe they were.

He hadn't even come to this place looking for his brother. He'd come following a crazy, brooding samurai that showed up at the prison with a basket of baby formula…because that's what the hell happened in a world gone to shit, angry samurais with baby formula tried to break into prisons…on a mission to save two of their group that had gotten, or so she said, kidnapped by the guy that ran this place.

And they had no other option than to believe her, given that she had the formula that the two people had been sent after.

So they'd come half-cocked, or at least Daryl knew now that they really weren't prepared for what they were stepping into, because they hadn't taken the time to really think things through. They hadn't taken the time figure out what they were going to do.

But that's how it worked these days. Nobody had time to think anymore.

They'd found the group members, and actually Daryl had a feeling that the place they'd ended up now was where he'd been before except for the fact that everything that had happened afterwards…everything that had sent the whole place into chaos and had started the fires and raised the noise levels outside to that of a mob…had knocked out the power that had made bare light bulbs flicker and burn above his head when he'd been in here before.

Yes, they'd found the group members, and he imagined that they'd gotten out, but he'd managed to get himself captured.

Of course, if he hadn't, he wouldn't have known his brother was there, so it was hard to say if he thought it was as bad as it could have been. Mostly he was trying not to think.

When Merle stopped jogging through the twisting and turning corridors that he seemed to have memorized enough to follow in the almost pitch black, Daryl ran into him for having not anticipated the abrupt halt in their forward movement.

Then he saw what his brother saw.

Just ahead of them, at the end of the hallway, there was a dancing light coming from what was very likely a flashlight.

"We don't want no trouble," Merle said, his voice just barely above a whisper. "Just wanna get the hell outta this place…but if you want trouble, I ain't gonna hesitate to kill ya ass."

Daryl was aware that he'd been stripped of his weapons. He assumed that Merle was in the same boat as he was. In the fight on the way in here he'd managed to take a knife off of a man, and he was pretty sure that Merle had done the same, but if they were facing someone with a gun, they might very well be at the wrong end of that threat.

Still, if they were going to die either way, they were going to die fighting. That's just how the hell they both operated.

He didn't expect what he heard, though, as the dancing beam drew closer to them.

"Please…I just wanna get out of here too," the voice said, barely even as loud as Merle's voice had been. "I just need help. Please…my mama…please…she needs help."

Daryl's heart did a strange lurch in his chest. The voice clearly belonged to a child. It belonged to a little girl that was hiding in the darkness just outside of her flashlight beam in the tunnels they were in.

And she wanted to leave, just like them, but she was concerned about her mother.

"Who the hell are ya?" Merle asked, stepping closer. Daryl followed, now not feeling threatened by the presence that was in the darkness with them.

"Sophia," the girl said softly.

Merle hummed.

"Sophia? Ed's young'un?" Merle asked.

Daryl didn't know what was happening, but apparently the two were acquainted in some way. The girl hummed back in agreement and Merle answered her, both of them sounding more like animals communicating at the moment than humans.

"He said you was dead," Merle mused. "Said you was both dead…said they found ya dead after they killed Ed…"

Daryl reached up out of instinct and grabbed his brother's shoulder, barely visible to him now given their growing proximity to the light. The girl might not know that they'd killed her father…it might not be the best way to tell her that news.

She didn't seem to react to that part of the story at all, though, and it struck Daryl.

"I'm not dead," Sophia said. "And my mama…she's not dead…not unless you let her die. Please…you've gotta help her. You've gotta help us!"

"Merle," Daryl said.

"We get outta here," Merle said to anyone that was listening. "We can't get no damn where with a half-dead woman and a kid."

"What you gonna do?" Daryl asked. "Leave 'em?"

"Please don't!" Sophia protested. "Please! I'll do whatever you want! We can cook…wash clothes…please!"

"Can't leave 'em," Daryl commented.

"Can't take care of our own damn selves!" Merle protested. "We don't get caught goin' out the back way and we're gonna be out there…you know what the hell's out there, brother! I ain't gonna be responsible for them too!"

Daryl felt like his brother was right. Taking on the responsibility of a child and a woman who might be too far gone for them to even help was really more than they could do. It was dangerous for everyone involved. They might not even make it back to the prison with the extra strain.

If he'd been thinking at all, he might have agreed with Merle and said to leave their asses behind, right there in the dark.

But that was the thing about the world these days. Decisions had to be made so quickly that rarely did anyone have any time to think.

Daryl reached around Merle and took the flashlight out of the girl's hand, shining its beam quickly over and, for the first time, seeing her face.

"You ain't gotta be," Daryl said. "My decision, my responsibility."


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Here we are, another little chapter here.**

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl's whole body was laboring under the strain of trying to run with the dead weight of the woman he feared wasn't too far from dead entirely. But he didn't have the heart to tell the girl that. She must have been a very good mama for the girl to worry so much, and maybe, just maybe, having lost his own at somewhere around what he supposed her age was made him want her to keep hers for however long she could.

Merle hadn't lied about knowing a back way out of the place, but once they'd made it out, their journey wasn't done. They had to figure out how to get back to the prison, none of them entirely sure how, and they had to do it while avoiding Walkers and whatever people Merle suggested the Governor guy might send after them, since nobody left Woodbury and lived to tell about it.

The girl, Sophia, had taken Daryl very literally when he told her to stay close to him. She kept up with him by alternating between looping her fingers through his belt loops or by putting what felt to be her whole hand in his back pocket and clinging to him in that manner as he half dragged her through the woods. Merle, for all his assertion that he was taking no responsibility for Daryl's new wards, stayed close and kept the Walkers off them as they rushed along.

Daryl was starting to wonder how far they could realistically make it, though. How far he could make it with his load.

And then they heard the crashing about of people, their footfalls different from those of Walkers, not far from them.

"We gotta fight, I'ma need'ja help, brother," Merle said.

They were some of the first words they'd exchanged. But Daryl understood what his brother was saying. He started looking around for somewhere relatively safe to lay the woman while they attempted to get through this whole ordeal that might be waiting for them.

He didn't have to find a place, though, because while he was searching, the first of the approaching group burst through the trees near them and they were face to face with Rick, the others presumably close behind.

"Well, if it isn't Officer Friendly," Merle mused. "Long time no see. Ya miss me?"

Daryl didn't know what he expected, but he didn't expect Rick to raise his gun suddenly at Merle. Merle laughed and put his hand up, the other hand missing arguably thanks to Rick.

"Easy Officer," Merle said, sounding far more amused than he should to be at gun point.

"Put the gun down!" Daryl spat.

Rick looked at him then. Then he seemed to take in the fact that Daryl was carrying a load of weight that he had to keep readjusting to keep the woman from spilling to the ground, and that he had a child, hand in his pocket, hanging onto him.

"Where'd you get them? What happened?" Rick asked. He still hadn't lowered the gun entirely that he held pointed at Merle, but he'd relaxed his posture a little.

Daryl felt a little annoyed at the questioning and it was made worse by the fact that he was straining under the weight of the woman. She wasn't large by any means, but she wasn't nonexistent either.

"After you left me, got kinda busy," Daryl commented. "Put'cha damn gun down. We're headed the same damn place you are."

"He's not," Rick said, gesturing toward Merle. "He tried to kill Glenn!"

"Tried to kill me too," Michonne said, stepping out of the tree line where Rick had come from a few moments before.

Merle chuckled.

"Midnight!" He commented, like he and the samurai were old friends. "Oh come on now…don't be sour. Just doin' my job. Man like you can appreciate that, right Officer Friendly? All in the line a' duty?"

Daryl didn't know what had happened or what exactly they were referring to, but he didn't much care at the moment. At the moment the only thing that he cared about was finding somewhere safe to put his load down. And that somewhere safe was the prison.

"He's comin'," Daryl commented, picking up the steps that he'd dropped off making and walking around Rick, Sophia in tow, to head toward where he now knew the prison must be.

"You can come back," Rick commented, ignoring Merle now and turning to keep step with Daryl for a second. "You can even bring them with you, but he's not coming back to the prison."

"He's my brother," Daryl said. "Reckon he comes with me."

"He tried to kill Glenn. He tried to kill Michonne. They were going to rape Maggie," Rick said.

Daryl stopped again. He looked at Rick and shook his head, not even needing to look back in the direction of Merle who, according to the lack of sound coming from him crunching through underbrush, had apparently not moved as of yet.

"I don't know what he did," Daryl said, "but he ain't had nothin' to do with Maggie. Merle don't believe in that kinda thing."

Rick leaned into him like they were having some kind of private discussion. He leaned into him, like he always did, to make them closer to one another. Theoretically Rick believed this to be a way of making him "more accessible" or even "more intimate" with someone, but Daryl knew what it was. It was a way of trying to intimidate…and Daryl wasn't as intimidated by Rick as Rick might like him to be. And as his arms tired out? He was growing even less able to be intimidated by anyone.

"You think he's not capable of those things? He tried to kill Michonne," Rick said. "You heard her say it."

Daryl snorted.

"I didn't say Merle wouldn't kill her," Daryl said. "I said he wouldn't _rape_ no damn body. There's a difference. We goin' to the prison. Back up…you smashin' Sophia."

Rick looked down at the girl that was sandwiched between them at the moment and keeping quiet about the tight quarters. Daryl was aware of it because he could feel her body pushing on him, but that was the only way he knew that she was very likely uncomfortable with their positions.

"They won't have him there," Rick said.

"I will," Daryl responded. "Lock us wherever the hell you want. Another cell block. I don't give a fuck…but I cleared that prison as much as anyone did. We goin' back there an' we goin' now 'cause she weighs more'n she looks like she weighs and she needs Hershel."

Daryl heard Merle laugh and he heard his feet in the leaves then.

"That's right," Merle drawled out. "You heard the man…goin' back to the prison. Let's go, lil' brother."

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The four of them, it seemed, were being treated now like they didn't belong to the group. They'd been pushed to the far end of the cell block, far enough away from everyone to create a clear division among the "yours" and "mine" parts of the prison, but not far enough away to actually create any great challenge if Merle, which is who they claimed to fear, had any real desire do anything to anyone that was there.

Daryl assumed it was more of the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality that the group had going for them at the moment than anything truly practical.

Rick had agreed not to lock Merle's cell for the moment, allowing easier passage for Daryl into the space, but he was already threatening that, at night, the doors would be locked so that Merle couldn't "do anything".

Daryl wasn't even sure what anyone thought Merle was going to do. He had genuinely very little interest in any of them.

At the moment, though, Merle's cell wasn't locked. Instead he was in his cell with the girl, Sophia, while Daryl sat with the unconscious woman and waited on someone to come and help her, a little flustered at their lack of concern or even speed in coming to be of assistance.

While he waited, Daryl wet a rag in a bowl of water that he'd gotten himself and wiped at the woman's face. Her name, as Sophia told him, was Carol. Through the layers of dried blood and dust and dirt, it was hard to tell what the woman looked like or how extensive her injuries were. Daryl tread easily as he cleaned her face, not wanting to accidentally open any wound that had started to close itself.

He had almost uncovered what she looked like beneath it all when he realized that Hershel was standing in the doorway of the cell.

"You finally come to help us?" Daryl asked. "The…outlaws?"

He laughed to himself and looked back at the woman that had probably suffered things he didn't even want to imagine and was, for all intents and purposes, now in a fight for her life.

"She's a real threat," he mused. "Almost as much as that lil' girl."

Hershel came further into the cell and pulled over the uncomfortable metal chair from the corner of the small space, turning up the flame on the lantern that Daryl had brought in there to light the space. He put down the bag that he'd brought with him and slid himself closer to the bed, and consequently, closer to Daryl.

"I had to talk to everyone," Hershel said. "They don't want your brother here, but I suppose you know that."

"Got the message," Daryl commented.

"You don't think he's dangerous?" Hershel asked.

"I know he ain't," Daryl responded.

"He tried to kill Glenn. He tried to kill Michonne. He took Maggie to a man that threatened her…" Hershel said, ticking off Merle's sins.

"I ain't his judge," Daryl said, shaking his head at the old man. "I ain't even talked to him. But I know he ain't dangerous."

"Where is he?" Hershel asked.

"In his cell," Daryl said. "With the girl. With Sophia."

Daryl had left Sophia with Merle, promising to get her as soon as there was some news about her mama, because he didn't think she needed to be in the cell with him if Hershel had bad news.

"You trust him with the girl?" Hershel asked.

Daryl chuckled again.

"Trust him with my life," Daryl said. "Merle…he ain't no good at handlin' his liquor. Likes his drugs an' women too damn much sometimes. But he ain't the devil ya think he is. He's my brother."

Daryl gestured toward the woman.

"Help her?" He asked. "Fix her up…my responsibility now. Then y'all don't want us here, we'll go."

Hershel stared at him a moment and then he nodded his head. Daryl, still sitting on the edge of the bed at this point, got to his feet so that he could watch over what the man did. He turned his head, once or twice, feeling uncomfortable as he watched Hershel unfastening what he could of the woman's clothes and cutting the rest with a knife that he brought in the bag. He noticed Hershel unpacked clothes for her from the bag. It seemed that no matter how the group felt about him or his brother, they were at least willing to offer clothes to the woman who may or may not live.

She hadn't, after all, had the chance to choose her companions in all of this.

Hershel picked up where Daryl had left off, washing the woman. Once he sent Daryl for water and Daryl found that someone, he didn't venture to guess who, had left a bucket of clean water not far from the cell that he could bring back to the old man.

"Where'd the cuffs come from?" Hershel asked about the handcuffs that Carol wore around her wrists.

"Was cuffed to a chair," Daryl said. "Broke the chains. Couldn't get 'em off."

"We could cut them off," Hershel said.

"Merle can pick 'em," Daryl said. "Just ain't had time yet."

Once Carol was clean enough that he could actually see what he was working with, Daryl watched as Hershel examined her, barely keeping her marked and scarred body covered with the prison blanket. Modesty, these days, was something that no one could afford.

"Well?" Daryl asked.

"Severely dehydrated, malnourished," Hershel said. "Someone has stitched some of these injuries and opened them again. She's got a fever. Could be infection. Swelling on this wrist means it could be fractured. I can tell better when we get the cuffs off."

"But she's gonna live?" Daryl asked.

Hershel hummed at him.

"She's a fighter," Hershel said. "But she's got a long way to go."

"Why ain't she conscious?" Daryl asked. He was concerned because, although she'd made a few sounds and shown some signs of trying to come around during the time he'd spent carrying her to the prison and during the time that he'd been sitting with her on the bunk, she hadn't achieved a full state of consciousness yet.

Hershel shook his head.

"I don't think she can be," he said. "I'll give her something for pain. That'll help. Get some food and water in her? She'll probably start to come around."

Daryl felt an odd sense of relief. And that sense of relief was somewhat bizarre to him because it made him realize, suddenly and with a certain degree of discomfort, that somehow he'd become, however greatly or minimally, invested in this woman in some way. He couldn't have felt relief over the fact that she was going to make it if he didn't care.

_And for whatever reason, he cared._

"What do I do?" Daryl asked. "How do I…ya know…feed her if she can't eat?"

Hershel stared at him for a moment.

"It would have been easier before," Hershel said. "Easier if we had equipment. Even IV bags. But…you can start with water. She'll probably swallow it if you give it to her a little at a time. I'll see about getting you some broth."

Daryl thanked the old man.

"I'll take care of it," Daryl said.

Hershel gestured toward the clothes he'd brought.

"Michonne offered these," he said. "Do you want me to…"

"I'll take care of it," Daryl offered. "Just need the water an' the soup?"

Hershel stood up from his spot and nodded at Daryl, surprising him by clapping him on the shoulder and squeezing it for a moment before he passed out of the cell and carried with him the promise of return with something that would help the woman.

And Daryl, confused with his own feelings on the whole matter, set about dressing the woman. It was the first time, at least that he could recall, that he'd ever dressed anyone.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl walked down to the cell where his brother was supposed to be occupying the time of the frightened, and surely traumatized, little girl. When he got there, though, he found that neither of them were occupying the other. Sophia was curled up, asleep, on the bottom bunk and Merle was passed out on the top bunk and snoring in short, loud bursts that echoed around the small space. The girl, clearly, was exhausted or she'd have never slept through the freight train rumbling above her.

It was for the best anyway. She probably needed to sleep and anything she found in whatever world lie behind her eyelids had to be a hell of a lot better than what there was to see here.

"Good damn thing Rick's puttin' our dangerous asses away from the rest of the group," Daryl commented to himself as he rummaged around in the cell looking for anything that might be of use there for caring for the woman.

Daryl wasn't even sure what he was there after or what he might need. He didn't know how to make the woman any better than she was…but no one else was really doing much of anything.

Hershel had come back, Merle had temporarily come down and picked the locked handcuffs with their broken chains off her wrists and had left in brooding silence to return to the company of a child. Hershel had set what was likely a broken wrist with the only wood that he could find, since no one was willing to help with even that, and it was little more than broken pieces of what appeared to have once been part of a chair that he bound with torn sheets. If she moved wrong, she might further injure herself with just the ends of the pieces themselves. He'd put a shoulder back into place, declared there might be injuries he didn't even know about, and left it at that.

_There was nothing more that he could do._

Here's some soup, here's some broth…good damn luck to you. They didn't even have pain meds that he could give her until she was able to swallow something solid without choking.

All in all, maybe, the thought was simply that this woman…Carol…was beyond saving. Surely that's what it said, right? The fact that he'd brought a fresh pair of cuffs…either Rick's or some that Rick took off his best buddy's dead body after he killed him…and cuffed the _least_ injured of the woman's arms to the bed so that, if she turned in the middle of the night, she could be put down without causing too much harm. That said that she probably wasn't going to make it.

And Daryl didn't have the slightest clue why he cared.

He had no reason to really care about this woman. He didn't know her. She didn't mean anything to him. She wasn't his blood. The kid…if the woman died, what happened to the kid? She wasn't his either. He didn't owe her a thing more than he'd already given them both, and that was a ride out of the crazy assholes town and right on over to the next place he'd probably visit, looking for some revenge.

But, for some reason, Daryl _did_ care.

Coming up with all the rags that he could find in the cell, Daryl left the space and went back down to the cell he was currently occupying with the woman. He'd stripped her clothes, the ones he'd put on her earlier in the day, half off of her.

He wasn't an idiot. Anyone in her condition was going to soil themselves. He might as well make it as simple to clean up as he could.

So he folded the rags to put under her, something easier to change out when the time came, and tried to remind himself that what he was doing had no real meaning to him at all.

He was taking care of the woman because the kid wasn't his. He was taking care of her because if the kid was going to grow up in this world she needed some damn body to call her own and she seemed particularly fond of her mother.

He was taking care of the woman because every kid should keep a mother that they were fond of…for as long as they possibly could.

He was taking care of the woman because nobody gave a damn about her.

He was taking care of the woman because nobody gave a damn.

And Daryl knew what the hell it was like to be on the receiving end of not a single fuck that anyone had to give.

So he was taking care of the woman.

But it didn't mean a thing to him.

If she lived, that was great. Good for the kid. Good for her. If she died, it was no skin off his teeth.

It didn't matter a damn bit to him, he was just taking care of her.

And he was probably only doing that until she died because Hershel seemed to think that, having gone through the day with little change, she was destined to do just that. She was fighting, but she just wasn't strong enough to fight her way back from wherever she was.

But Daryl thought, and maybe it was that he was tired and the flickering light of the emergency lamp played tricks on his eyes, that there might be a little change. He thought that he might see, just maybe, a little color in her face. He thought that her breathing might have changed a little and that it was a little more profound now than it had been when he'd started giving her the water and the broth with the abandoned medicine dropper from a kid's bottle of some nasty medicine or another.

But, change or not, it didn't matter to him anyway.

Daryl sat down on the edge of the bed, ignored the probable hour that had everyone asleep in the prison but him, and sucked up another dropper full of the broth from the second bowl that had appeared outside the cell without explanation. Daryl had never heard the approach of the person who left it there with fresh water and food for himself, Merle, and the girl. It was left, it seemed, by some kind of food-fairy that must haunt the prison.

He lifted the woman's head in his hand, much like he'd been doing earlier, and dribbled the contents of the dropper into her mouth. If his angle was right, she swallowed it without prompting. If it wasn't, he'd fill the back of her throat until he rubbed her throat with his fingers and coaxed her to swallow it.

He hadn't let the girl see her.

He'd told Sophia that she could see her in the morning. Maybe he figured the morning was going to be magical, even as it quickly approached, and she might be awake…good as new. Maybe he figured that it would be easier on the girl to see things one way or another. Alive or dead, but not teetering somewhere in the darkness between the two, threatening to slip over an edge.

Daryl didn't know what he thought the morning would hold. And he reminded himself that he didn't care.

"You gonna have to give me some kinda damn sign," he said to the woman that hadn't so much as moved on her own. There weren't even any muscle spasms. She was as still as any possum he'd ever seen. The only movement he got out of her at all was the swallowing and, when Hershel had set her wrist and put the shoulder back, the rapid movement of eyes behind lids…eyes that didn't move when they searched for movement.

_She was in there. She was hiding, but she was in there._

And it wasn't hard to imagine why the hell she was hiding. Daryl winced at the injuries on her body. Anyone would hide from them.

He had yet to ask Merle how damn long she'd been missing, but it looked to him, too, that she'd been sustaining these injuries for a long damn time. They were in various states of healing, and some of them looked to have been there for ages.

_Scars. He knew a thing or two about them. Merle did too. Everyone would someday. _

"Not askin' for a whole damn lot," Daryl said. "Somethin'. Tell me I ain't wastin' my damn time. Tell me I didn't waste my damn breathe draggin' your ass all the way here. You supposed to be some kinda good damn Ma? Give me some damn sign you comin' back for ya kid. Ain't leavin' her damn ass…bailin' out on her. Disappearin'."

He muttered to himself to keep himself company. He didn't genuinely expect the woman to respond, but there was no one else to talk to and no one that would have listened to him, or anyone else he was now apparently affiliated with, with any more interest than the unconscious woman.

Because around here? Around here they thought they knew him. They thought they knew him and they thought they knew Merle.

And before Merle had showed back up in his life some odd number of hours ago? He was good around here. He was good because they could get him to do what the hell they wanted him to do. He was good because he could do the heavy lifting. He was good to do their dirty work.

He was good enough to do for them.

But he wasn't good enough _for_ them.

And even less so now.

The more that Daryl thought about it, forcing droppers of water and broth alternatively down the woman's throat, the angrier he got at the whole damn situation.

He didn't have shit when the world went to hell. He had his brother, a rusted out piece of shit truck, his brother's motorcycle, the weapons that they had in their tin can shithole, and a ridiculous stash of drugs that made Merle so damn unbearable that Daryl sometimes preferred the company of the Walkers over him when he was strung out.

And this group?

_Rick?_

He'd managed to take part of that away.

And he wanted to be best friends with Daryl. He wanted to call him brother. He wanted to use him for his dirty work and he wanted Daryl to carry around his weight while he was mourning the wife he'd treated like shit for half the time that Daryl had known him…whether or not she'd been someone that Daryl would have never wanted as a wife himself.

_But Rick showed him that he killed best friends over wives he treated like shit. He treated wives like shit over best friends he killed. He had so much respect for "brothers" that he thought nothing of handcuffing one to a roof and leaving him there for dead._

_When you weren't any good anymore? You were disposable. He didn't give a damn, and maybe they hadn't realized it, but Daryl had. He didn't give a damn. Nobody gave a damn._

And they didn't give a damn about this woman or her kid either.

"Wake up!" Daryl yelled, putting his lips close enough to the woman's ear that if she wasn't completely deaf she had to hear it…no matter where she was. He didn't even care that the burst of sound echoed through the prison or that he thought he heard Rick's kid cry down the way where they were all sleeping…safe from the four of them by nothing more than distance and their ignorance that if they gave a damn about them enough to do anything, he and Merle would have likely killed the whole damn lot of them by now.

Daryl shook the woman slightly and then realized what he was doing. He realized that he couldn't take his rage out on her. He wouldn't take his rage out on her.

_That had been the promise that he and Merle had both made to their mother, even if she'd never heard it. They wouldn't take their anger out on a woman. They wouldn't treat a woman worse than an animal, just because they could._

_If either of them ever lived to see the day that they had a "wife" to call their own? They wouldn't treat her like they'd seen him treat their mother._

Daryl took his hands off the woman in front of him. Rested her back on the bed, her belly fuller of the liquids now than it had been before, and got up to pace the small space in the cell. He lit a cigarette for himself and smoked it as he paced, not giving a damn where the ashes fell.

He wanted to be angry at her because she wasn't fighting. He wanted to tell her that weakness gets you no damn where and if you want to survive anything you have to man the fuck up and fight…fight back.

But he knew she was fighting. He knew she wasn't weak. If she was, she wouldn't be breathing right now.

And she was still breathing. She was still fighting. Even as the day wore on and the morning crawled closer, she was still alive.

_Whether or not he cared._


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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When the morning came, Sophia woke to find herself in the prison bunk where she'd fallen asleep. She'd never actually meant to fall asleep at all. She'd been waiting to hear how her mama was. She'd been waiting to see her. She'd only lied down for the moment when Merle, the eldest of the two brothers, had suggested she close her eyes. He was going to wake her when there was anything to be awake for.

And now she realized that she'd slept all night. She woke with a start, panic seizing up her body at the unfamiliar location.

Merle appeared not to have moved. He was sitting, just like he'd been when she closed her eyes, in the chair in the corner, kicked back and mouth open slightly, reading from a book that he'd found in the cell. He was reading, though it looked odd enough in his hands, a Bible, the only thing that the cell had offered him.

He looked at Sophia when she sat up and she thought she saw a hint of something like a smile or a smirk on his face before he set his mouth straight again.

"Well, you can wake up," Merle mused. "Was beginnin' ta think you was dead. Food on the table there, you hungry."

Sophia wasn't entirely sure if he was asking her a question or making a statement, but there was a bowl of something on the table, a spoon stuck in it, that looked vaguely like wallpaper paste. And she was just hungry enough to eat it.

"Where's my mama?" She asked.

"Same damn place she was the last time you was lookin' for her," Merle said.

He closed the Bible he'd been reading from and dropped the book loudly onto the floor beside the chair that he was sitting in.

"Ain't a damn one of us moved," he added.

Sophia knew Merle. Rather, she didn't _know _him, but she'd seen him before. He'd worked with her daddy in Woodbury. He'd worked with the man that ran the place. The man that had wanted her to be a _good little girl_…to be _his_ little girl.

She'd been afraid of Merle. He didn't look like the kind of man that liked kids. He didn't really look like the kind of man that liked anybody, to be honest. The only people he seemed to like were the women that Sophia would see him talking to the times she saw him when she was coming home from her classes or she was stopping with her mama to buy things at the store.

Now, though? Now he didn't seem like the frightening figure that she'd taken him to be when she'd seen him in a different setting, and maybe that was simply because they were sitting together in a prison cell. Now he just like seemed like an old man with a metal cuff where his arm was supposed to be that stretched his legs and cracked his neck and knuckles more than he should.

He was bigger than her. He was bigger than a lot of people, actually, but he didn't seem like the person that she remembered seeing around Woodbury.

"Is my mama OK?" Sophia asked.

Merle made something of a grunting noise.

"She's alive," he said. "If she weren't…reckon we'da knowed about it by now."

"Can I see her?" Sophia asked, shoveling more of the paste into her mouth. Whatever it was, it looked and smelled like paste, and it tasted just as bad, so she wasn't trying to put a name to it.

"Hell I don't know," Merle responded, sounding a little annoyed with the question. "You can do whatever you damn well please far as I'm concerned."

Sophia, having had as much of the paste as she could keep down, put the bowl back on the nightstand. She didn't know if Merle had eaten or not, but there wasn't any evidence he had if he'd already had breakfast. She hated to bother him, since she felt sure she was bothering him, but at the moment there wasn't anyone else to talk to and there wasn't anyone else to address her concerns to.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Sophia said, keeping her voice low. She didn't want to make him angry, but she was almost sure that she couldn't hold it too much longer, and if she peed all over herself and everything else, he might be even more angry than he'd be by telling her where she might go.

Merle hummed again.

"There's a bucket, just in the hall," he said. "Figure that's where the hell we goin' long as we all under some kinda damn protection program…you know…case you was thinkin' on shootin' up the joint."

Sophia furrowed her eyebrows at him.

"I don't have a gun," she said. "And…I can't shoot."

Merle chuckled.

"Piss in the damn bucket," he said, pointing again.

Sophia got up from the bunk that she was sitting on and stepped across the cell. Just outside of it, near the bars, was a white bucket. She wasn't going to be the first to use it and she crinkled her nose up at the thought of it. In Woodbury they'd had bathrooms that worked with toilets. Before they'd gotten there, they'd gone in the woods because they were camping the whole way.

This was what she had, though, and if it that's all there was…which clearly it was…then she'd simply have to make do with it. She looked around, but she saw no evidence that there was even anyone else in the prison besides her and Merle. She looked back at him, through the bars as she popped the button on the pants she was wearing.

"Well turn around," she directed him.

He stared at her, and furrowed his brow at her. Sophia made the "turning motion" with her hand that her mama always used on her when she wanted her to spin and show her what she looked like from all directions.

"Turn around," Sophia said, worrying that he might be a little too dumb to understand her. "I'm going to pee now. Turn."

Merle chuckled, shook his head, and turned his head dramatically to look at the far wall of the prison cell.

"Fuck," he spat. "I hope ya damn Ma wakes her ass up soon."

Sophia sighed and hovered above the bucket.

"Me too," she muttered back to the man who was apparently her companion now.

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Hershel said there'd been no change. He'd insinuated, even, that Daryl was making up what he was sure was a change, but Daryl knew that he wasn't.

The woman looked better. And maybe Hershel was just too blind or too old to see it. Maybe he couldn't see it because he hadn't watched it happen, but Daryl could see it.

And he didn't care, not really, but he wasn't going to be told that he was just making it all up.

She looked better. Her skin, at least that of it that wasn't blotched and bruised and mistreated, was more the color of human skin and farther away from the sallow color that it had been. Her breathing was a hell of a lot better than it had been and she was almost breathing deeply now.

Hell, if you were looking, you could see her eyes moving behind her eyelids, even though they didn't perform for Hershel when he pulled her lids up looking for whatever it was that he was looking for.

There had been a damn change. And Daryl was going to get more of a change out of her, one way or another.

"I ain't feedin' you," Daryl declared, sitting on the bed beside the woman. "I ain't. I ain't feedin' you and I ain't wipin' your ass no more. Not until you open your damn eyes and tell me you're fuckin' trying to get outta wherever you are."

He moved for his almost empty cigarette pack, took one out, and lit it, not moving from the bed. He blew some of the smoke in her direction, looking to see if it might cause even a flinch. She didn't respond, but he thought he saw her eyes moving again.

"I get it," he said to her, even if she wasn't listening. "I get it. Hell…lot damn better in there, right? Don't know how fuckin' much it sucks out here. Don't know how damn much…"

He broke off and looked at her.

If she had a shred of dignity left, he'd taken that from her. She was covered with a blanket, but he knew she was naked from the waist down. She was handcuffed to a bed in a prison cell and she'd had the shit beat out of her…she'd been burned and beaten and cut and God knew what else.

There were different levels of low in life. She was probably at just about the lowest a body got before it just gave up and died.

But she hadn't given up and she hadn't died.

"It hurts," Daryl said, finishing his earlier thought. "You ain't dead. You didn't fuckin' die…you coulda, but you didn't. So you wanna live. So fuckin' live. That's all the hell I'm sayin'. Open ya damn eyes, look at me, and then get to fuckin' living. You can open ya damn eyes I can give you something. This is good shit…good enough…help with the pain. But you gotta balls up and fuckin' do something about it."

He thought she moved. It may have been simply a twitch…some unconscious muscle spasm, but he thought she moved. He thought, too, that he could see her eyes, moving around again in the darkness her lids provided them.

And he wanted, as badly as he had the night before, to shake her until she had no choice but to wake up. He didn't shake her, though. He puffed angrily on his cigarette, pissed at the woman for being unconscious when he didn't want her to be, and when he'd finished it he dropped it on the floor and snubbed it out with is boot where it landed.

He leaned close to her again, like he had before, figuring that proximity to her ears might somehow get his words into her head. Being loud and being close to her might give the words enough force to get over whatever wall they encountered just inside.

"Get up! Open ya fucking eyes! Do it for Sophia! That's why the hell you here. That's why the hell you ain't curled up an' died. So open ya fucking eyes and look at her! I don't owe you shit and you don't owe me shit, lady, so don't do me no damn favors. But come the hell back for Sophia," Daryl growled.

And Daryl moved back himself, almost like someone had yelled at him, because the woman moved then. She didn't roll or sit up…it wasn't that dramatic, but she clearly moved her head. Daryl sat back, nodding his head to himself without even meaning to, not sure if words or silence would bring her to keep moving.

"Yeah…" he muttered. "Come on…open ya eyes now…"

But when her eyelids did flutter, her head moving slightly from side to side like she was trying to shake herself out of wherever she was, Daryl realized he didn't have a clue what to say to this woman.

Now that she was waking, though, it looked like she was as dedicated to doing it as she had been to staying alive. It might not be sudden and it might not look like much to anyone…but not just anyone had been watching her all night through bleary eyes while force feeding her droppers of water and soup, both of which kept magically appearing outside the cell by some invisible delivery person.

When her eyes finally fluttered open, they froze wide for a moment, or at least as wide as they could since once was clearly somewhat swollen to the point of almost being impossible for to open without using hands to hold it open. Daryl hadn't known what to expect, not having looked at them while Hershel was examining her, but he didn't expect them to be as blue as they were.

And he wasn't sure why, but seeing her eyes open, simple as it was, made him have a strange feeling in his chest…almost like pride or some kind of victorious feeling.

Before he could say anything to her, she rolled her head slightly, and pulled at the arm that was handcuffed to the bed weakly. He could take that off now, if he could get the key. But then she moved her head slightly again and saw him. And his stomach turned at the look of horror on her face that accompanied her sharp intake of breath.

"No!" He declared when she started to make a noise that was almost like crying, but without the tears he thought of as accompanying the act. He held his hands up. "Ain't gonna hurt you! Ain't nobody gonna hurt you! Make it better!"

She didn't look like she really believed him, though, and he couldn't blame her if she didn't. She probably hadn't had a lot of people, from the looks of her, that she could trust lately.

She stopped the sound, but started to pant, and Daryl feared she'd hyperventilate.

"Calm down…calm down…you ain't gonna get hurt no more," Daryl said. "Got drugs to give you…got…Sophia! You wanna see her?"

The woman's breathing slowed a little, even though she still looked terrified.

"Sophia?" She asked, her voice coming out scratchy and hoarse.

Daryl nodded.

"Sophia," he repeated. "Don't lose your mind…just stay there…right there. I'm gettin' her…"

He got off the bed to go after the girl, but he didn't have to go far. As soon as he hung out of the cell slightly to turn in the direction of where he'd left the girl with his brother, he found her standing, leaning against the stone wall, apparently either waiting on him or having come to get a little closer to where they were.

And as soon as she saw him, she ran past him and into the cell so that, by the time he could turn around follow her, he found her on her knees on the bed, folded over into her mother's body.

Both of them were crying.

And he didn't think they'd notice if he took a moment to walk off alone, around the piece of the prison they were permitted in, just to stretch his legs.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here.**

**I hope this one is good, but honestly I've got my doubts. It was much smoother in my head. LOL**

**Still, I hope you enjoy. And for all my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! Let me know what you think! **

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Daryl's trip around the part of the prison where he seemed to be allowed to go didn't do much for clearing his head. He didn't bother, either, heading in the direction of where he'd find his brother because that wouldn't do anything for his mind at the moment either.

He couldn't even say at the moment what it was that was choking him. It felt, though, like his chest was constricting. It felt like the sensation just before you launched into a choking cough, but there wasn't any cough.

The woman was alive. She still had a long way to go before she could be considered "healed," that much was certain, but she was alive. And she was with her kid now, who was alive and seemed to be doing quite well, even if her companion for the past little while had been Merle.

Daryl didn't know how long he should give them. What was customary for something like this? He realized he knew so little about either of them that he wasn't even entirely sure how long it had been since Carol and Sophia had seen each other.

He gave them one whole cigarette, half of one that he'd smoked earlier, and the time it took for him to take a piss in the bucket outside of the cell where Merle was sleeping, nothing else to do with his time for the moment.

And on his way back to the cell, he noticed that the water and soup fairy had come, leaving this time the pile of rags that he'd thrown outside the cell from cleaning the woman along with a few more bottles of water where he'd left the empty ones. The rags were washed and folded, upon inspection, and he gathered them up, not knowing how many possible uses he might have for them.

And then he came into the cell. The woman, still cuffed to the bed, was still now and lying back…almost to the point he feared she'd slipped away again, and Sophia was lying curled into her, her head resting on the cuffed arm, something Daryl knew had to hurt simply because that had been the dislocated shoulder. At this point she'd be lucky if it wasn't dislocated again.

"Sophia?" Daryl asked, clearing his throat immediately afterwards because he wasn't happy with his quality of voice.

The girl sat up and looked at him and the woman moved too, clearly wincing against her own pain.

"Can you go?" He asked. "Find Hershel? That old man? Tell him we need the key?"

Sophia nodded at him and slipped off the bed and the woman jarred herself trying to lunge for the girl. She called out her name loudly enough that it echoed in circles around the small space.

Sophia froze, clearly conflicted. She didn't want to leave her mother, but she wanted to help Daryl help her mother.

So Daryl addressed the woman.

"Stop movin'," he said. "You just gonna hurt yourself more and there ain't no need in it. She's gonna go get the key for them cuffs, get you loose. Everybody shits a brick if I head in that direction…don't trust me none or my brother…but they don't mind the girl that much. Gonna get the doctor too. Fix you up?"

Daryl glanced toward Sophia and she shifted a little on her feet.

"It's OK, Mama," Sophia said. "I'll be right back."

And she took her own declaration of departure as permission at this point and darted out of the cell in search of Hershel and a handcuff key.

Daryl approached the woman. She shied away from him as he moved to sit, so he straightened back up immediately. When she was unconscious, she wasn't afraid of him. The same couldn't be said now.

But then again? She probably wasn't having the most pleasant or comprehensible experience either.

Daryl reached toward the table, overrun with everything he'd collected since he got her there, and flicked out some of the pain medicine into his palm.

"You need to take these," Daryl said. "Just for pain. Strong stuff, but…you gotta have a lotta pain. Help keep you restin' while it heals."

"I'm fine," the woman protested. She was trying to make her voice come out strong and authoritative. Fatigue, pain, and likely fear, made it shake, though.

Daryl unscrewed the lid on one of the half empty water bottles and regarded the woman, eye almost swollen shut, face mostly purple and black blotches. Still, she was watching him like she might use whatever strength she had left to try to gauge his eyes out if she were given the chance.

"You got no damn reason to trust me," Daryl ceded. "But if I was gonna kill you? I wouldn't carried your ass all the way here bridal style to keep from breakin' anymore of your ribs throwin' you over my shoulder. And if I was gonna kill you? Woulda put some shit over ya head while you slept…choked you out. You so damn covered in bruises nobody woulda been none the wiser an' they was all waitin' on your ass to die. But I ain't killed you and I weren't waitin' on you to wake up so you could see it comin'. Only damn interest I got in you is gettin' you better so you can watch out for that kid, 'cause me an' my brother ain't the kid keepin' types."

Carol stared at him. He had no idea what might be running through her mind right now, but he knew that taking the pills and getting some relief from what she was swallowing back was going to have to go a long way. The thing was, she was going to have to swallow them herself, he couldn't do that for her.

He held the pills up, showing her that they were the only thing in his hand and then he moved his hand to rest the fingers holding them against her lips.

"Open ya mouth, swallow the pills," he growled.

It took her a moment, but she did open her mouth. He dropped the pills in and offered her the water, but she turned her face away from him a little, clearly still holding the pills in her mouth.

"Where is he?" She asked around them.

"Don't know who the hell you talkin' about," Daryl said. "Water." He pushed the bottle against her mouth and she turned her head away again, this time wincing at her efforts of escape. "Drink the fuckin' water and take the damn pills!" Daryl protested, feeling irritation growing in him that he could simply force them down her throat.

"The Governor," Carol mumbled around the pills. "Where is he? Who are you?"

"He ain't here," Daryl said. "That's the asshole at that town, right? He ain't here, but he might be here 'fore long. Why don't'cha take the damn pills and we'll have a nice, long chat about it?"

Carol rolled her face in his direction. She was panting slightly, whether it was from exertion or one of the other multitude of problems she probably was suffering from, but she finally opened her mouth slightly and accepted some of the water that Daryl was trying to force into her mouth.

And she clearly swallowed the pills, verbally requesting a little more of the water. Daryl gave it to her, trying not to drown her.

Daryl sat on the side of the bed and she did her best to move away from him.

"Just sitting," he said. "You slept last night…I didn't."

"Who are you?" Carol asked. "Where am I?"

"Who I am don't really matter," Daryl said. "But…I'm Daryl. And you're in a prison. It's a prison, but it's where the hell we live. We're with a group…"

He stopped.

"Sorta," he added. "And I'ma see about gettin' you some solid food if you think you can eat?"

"I don't understand…" Carol started.

Daryl cut her off by physically putting his hand up to show that she didn't need to go any farther.

"Look, I know there's a lot you don't understand, but I'm too damn tired right now to explain it all to you. There's a helluva lot that I don't know neither. You're here. Me an' my brother. We got you an' your kid out. You been out since we got here, but now you awake and them drugs are gonna make you feel better," Daryl said.

"How did you…?" Carol asked, but she didn't finish the question.

"Get you out?" Daryl asked.

She just looked at him with a furrowed brow, but he knew that's what he was asking.

"Sophia found us," Daryl said. "We were getting out, she wanted out, we took you with us. There ain't no real story to tell."

"Why?" Carol asked. "Why…did you…do anything for me?"

Daryl stared at her. For the life of him, he couldn't really answer that question. He'd asked himself that a few times. Why had he gotten her out? Why had he not been able to tell Sophia no? Why had he not been able to just leave her behind when Merle declared she wouldn't live through the night? Why hadn't he left her when she was almost too heavy to carry? Why had he been there, feeding her droppers of water and soup and washing her with wet rags?

Because he didn't owe her a thing. He could have walked away at any point and he could have done it with the clear conscience that he'd done everything that he actually owed to this woman who he didn't even know.

He could have walked away when she'd woken up. He could leave her to Sophia right now…go off and get some sleep. Good luck and good life.

But he was still sitting here.

And he didn't have an answer for her, not what he considered a real answer.

"Did what the hell needed to be done," Daryl said. "Did what anybody woulda done."

He got to his feet suddenly, feeling uncomfortable with the whole situation and with the expectation that he would be able to answer this question for the woman when he couldn't answer it for himself.

"I'm…uh…gonna check on Sophia," he said. "See if…Hershel's coming. Just don't move no more. Only arm we could handcuff, shoulder was messed up on it, don't pull it no more."

He didn't turn back to see if Carol was acknowledging him or not. He stepped quickly out of the cell, almost wishing the corridor area might offer him fresh air, and looked around. He could see Sophia coming from here, Hershel behind her.

Daryl walked a few steps in their direction, closing the distance in half the time.

"She's awake?" Hershel asked, almost as though he didn't believe the girl.

"Awake, talking," Daryl said. "Fine…I mean…not fine but…fine."

Hershel nodded at him like he understood and Daryl was glad he did, because he wasn't sure he understood himself at the moment.

"Did you give her the pain medication?" Hershel asked.

Daryl nodded that he had and Hershel responded that he was pleased with that.

"You'll go look at her?" Daryl asked. Hershel said that he would. "I'm…uh…"

He looked around. He wanted to take his leave of Hershel and Sophia both. He wanted to take his leave of Carol. He felt like he needed a moment to himself. He needed a moment to breath. He needed to rest his eyes from not daring to close them much the night before. But, truthfully, it wasn't like he had that many options for escape available to him.

"I'm goin' down a few cells," Daryl said. "Rest my eyes a couple minutes…"

He looked toward Sophia then, figuring that if anyone was going to actually stay with Carol, if anyone was going to actually put some time and effort into her recovery, it was going to be Sophia.

"You come and get me," Daryl said, making sure that he made the statement come across as being a demand and not a question. If he was going to do this, if he was going to help, he didn't want the girl to be afraid of approaching him…and he figured, even if she wasn't the one in some kind of torture chair, she might have a hell of a lot to be afraid of. That's just how the world was made these days, after all. "You come and get me when he's done, when you need somethin'. I'll just be down a couple cells."

Hershel headed for the cell, already knowing well which one it was by now, and Sophia stood for a moment, her eyes locked on Daryl's, before she nodded and scurried quietly after Hershel to see her mother released from her restraints and looked after properly.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy the MSF! Let me know what you think! **

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Daryl lie, arm over his face to block out whatever light there was, on his back on the prison cot. He wanted to sleep, but sleep didn't come as easily as he might have thought it would. Instead he seemed to just be floating around in the darkness behind his eyelids, his whole body feeling liking it was swaying…like the whole room was swaying. But he never did manage to actually sleep.

He expected Sophia to come for him. He expected her to tell him what he needed to know, what she needed from him…what her mother needed from him.

But it wasn't Sophia that came, shuffling into the space with shoes that scratched on dirty cement floors. It was Hershel.

"Daryl?" Hershel asked, apparently not sure if Daryl was awake or asleep behind the cover of his arm.

Daryl moved his arm and sat up relatively quickly, an odd sensation of his stomach turning finally from the sea sickness his body should have suffered from the swaying. Was the woman dead? Had she come back just to let go?

"What happened?" Daryl asked quickly, the words seeming to fall out of his mouth of their own accord.

Hershel pulled the bare framed prison chair near the cot and sat down as though Daryl were his patient for the moment. He chuckled lightly in his throat.

"What would you think is wrong?" He asked.

"That woman OK?" Daryl asked.

Hershel cleared his throat.

"Are you taking responsibility for this woman, Daryl?" Hershel asked.

Daryl hummed.

"Guess I am," he said. "So whatever you gotta say…"

"Do you know her?" Hershel asked.

"Don't know you neither," Daryl commented.

Hershel's only response was to nod his head slightly.

"She's suffered a good deal of injury," Hershel said. "The shoulder was damaged again…"

"Wouldn'ta been," Daryl commented quickly, not knowing why he felt so defensive over the woman, but there wasn't anyone else who was going to look out for her. "Insisted on cuffing her…other wrist is broke. Shoulder woulda been fine if it weren't for that. It was stupid."

Hershel hummed at Daryl in a way that almost annoyed Daryl. It felt like he was being dismissed. But he wanted to know what was wrong with the woman, so he simply shifted a little, sitting to face the old man now, and waited.

"She's suffered a good deal of injury," Hershel repeated. Daryl fought the urge to tell him that he'd already said it. "But…she's already doing much better than I thought she'd be. You've taken good care of her."

Daryl didn't respond. He didn't really care for the words of praise. Words like that made him uncomfortable. They made him almost want to squirm around inside his skin. They sounded unnatural being directed at him and they felt unnatural to accept. He didn't respond because he had no idea how anyone was supposed to respond to that.

He'd done nothing extraordinary. He'd fed and given water to a dying woman in the hope that she wouldn't die. That was hardly heroic.

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Carol's body seemed to tremble every few moments. It was a tremor that rippled through her uncontrollably. If she were cold, it might have been a shiver, but she wasn't cold. She thought, then it might have simply been weakness. The doctor that had examined her, a vet by his own profession but apparently the closest thing to a doctor that the world had to offer her these days, had suggested that she would be weak. She would be weak…she would be tired…it would take time to heal.

He'd forgotten one thing, though, and she thought it might be the true reason for the tremor.

_She would be terrified._

When she looked around her, she found herself in a prison cell. She found herself on a prison cot, half dressed, but covered with a blanket, wounded but clean and bandaged, battered and bruised but alive.

She felt her own confusion and disorientation.

Where was she? How had she gotten here? How had Sophia gotten here? Who were these people?

_Where was he?_

When she had first woken in what she could only think of as a torture chamber, though now she realized she had no idea where she'd actually been, she'd thought he was telling the truth. He would let her go. He would let Sophia go. He wanted information, information that she didn't have, but he would let her go once he realized that he knew everything that she could possibly tell him.

As time had gone on, though…however much time it had been because Carol wasn't sure about how long she'd been in the place…she'd realized that he was never letting her go. He was never going to let her leave that place. She'd never be outside of it until she went...wherever it was she would go when she died, perhaps just deeper into the darkness.

And maybe, she'd almost believed that she had died.

Yet here she was, in a prison cell, on a prison bunk, with Sophia curled at her side like she'd done so many times when she was just a baby.

And Carol was terrified because it seemed, honestly, too good to be true after what she'd come to accept about her fate. She was weak, she was in pain despite the fact her head swam with whatever she'd been given to take, but she was alive, and her daughter was curled at her side and appeared to be entirely unharmed.

It seemed so good, in fact, that Carol was almost resisting entirely the urge to even speak to Sophia, as though part of her was afraid that in engaging with the girl, she would somehow wake herself and find that this was only some sort of dream. It was only a hallucination of happiness that her brain was offering her to momentarily ease her suffering.

The man from before, Carol had already forgotten his name, came into the cell, shuffling his feet as he did. He held, in his hand, a plate. He loomed over her and Sophia sat up some.

"What'd Hershel say?" Sophia asked the man.

Carol felt so strange seeing Sophia talk to him. She seemed comfortable around him, but Carol honestly wasn't sure yet if that was a good thing or not.

He made a growling sound in the back of his throat, the sound of a person who had smoked, perhaps, too much in a short life.

"Ain't said much," Daryl responded to Sophia. "Go eat. Merle's got your plate."

Before Carol could really respond in any way, Sophia kissed her on the cheek and scurried out of the cell. She already seemed, as strange as it was to even think it, more at home here than she'd seemed when they'd first arrived in Woodbury and started, what they thought, to be a new life…or at least their new life in this world gone mad.

"Can you sit up any?" Daryl asked.

Carol tried to figure out how she was going to manage this. Her shoulder had been a problem for her for years, and now it was clearly not in good condition. The vet, Hershel they were calling him, had temporarily bound it to her side. According to him, her other wrist was likely broken and it was rudimentarily stabilized. She used her elbow to try to wrestle herself up as much as she could.

The man put the plate down on the nightstand and moved toward her. Before she could ask what he was doing, he supported her, helping her turn and then wiggle her way into place so she could sit, somewhat, leaned against the wall the bed was pushed against.

She tried not to hiss at the way her body felt about her choice of movement.

"Broken ribs," he said. "Cracked…broken…all the same thing. That medicine's good, but it ain't good enough to make ya forget it all."

He sat down next to her.

"I've forgotten your name," she said.

"Daryl," he said.

Carol chuckled to herself when she thought about it, determined to set it to memory.

"So funny?" Daryl asked.

"Shouldn't be hard to remember," Carol said. "Rhymes with mine."

He looked off for a minute, but Carol thought she saw a hint of amusement on his face when he realized that what she said was true.

"Where's Sophia?" She asked.

"Eatin'," Daryl said. "Merle's got her a plate."

Carol felt struck for a moment. That name was familiar. Now, of course, there might be, for all she knew, a thousand and one Merles left in the world…that might be the name of those specially chosen to survive this thing…but the name still struck her.

"Merle?" She asked.

Daryl sat down on the bed next to her and hummed. Immediately, he held a spoonful of whatever the food on the plate was supposed to be in front of her mouth.

"My brother," he said. "Eat."

Carol backed her head as far as the wall would allow and looked at the food.

"I can feed myself," she said.

Daryl looked slightly amused.

"Yeah? With what hand?" He asked.

Carol realized, after just a brief moment of thinking about it, that he at least had her there for a short amount of time while she allowed the shoulder that had recently been put back into place to "rest".

"Don't look like that," Daryl said. "Just eat the damn food. Feedin' you ain't the worst thing I done."

Carol felt her stomach churn a little at the thought. She was trying very hard not to imagine what he might have done. She was trying very hard not to imagine what anyone had done. But she accepted the food.

"How did we get here?" She asked, around the food.

Daryl shrugged.

"Run," he said. He growled. "There ain't no trick to this story. Merle an' me was gettin' out some secret way he knew. We run into Sophia an' she asked us to get you. We got you. We all left together. We come back here, but they've got us in our type of solitary confinement because my brother can be a right big asshole when he puts his mind to it and the people here can't tell the damn difference between that and someone out to kill they asses. So here we are."

He pushed another bite of the food at Carol, something that she was identifying as tasting like mashed potatoes mixed with a scant amount of meat or meat gravy, and she accepted it.

"Where was the Governor?" Carol asked.

Daryl stared at her. Finally he shook his head slightly. She took that as evidence that he didn't know where he was. He'd been gone somewhere when they had "tried to get out" and ended up "getting her and Sophia out" with them.

"Did you live in Woodbury?" Carol asked. "Because…I don't remember your face."

Daryl shoved more of the food at her and she took it, too nervous to tell him that at the rate he was feeding her she might be sick simply because she couldn't remember the last time she'd swallowed down substantial food, and she really couldn't remember ever having consumed it with the speed he was suggesting she use.

He shoveled another spoonful into her mouth before he answered her question, and she nearly gagged on it, so he backed up a little.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Didn't live there. Went there to get people back. Found my brother. Listen, lady, there ain't no story here to tell."

Carol swallowed down the food in her mouth and nodded at him, almost fearing he'd offer her more immediately if he realized her mouth was empty.

"How'd you end up cuffed to his chair? Beat all to hell?" Daryl asked.

"My husband," Carol said. "He worked with him. He…disappeared. I guess he had something important. I guess he had some information? The Governor thought I could tell him where…where Ed went…but I didn't know anything."

"So he tortured you for it?" Daryl asked.

"Or because he liked doing it," Carol offered.

Daryl offered her more food as a response and she took it, thankful to at least have had time to breathe between bites this round.

"Are we safe?" Carol asked.

He furrowed his brow at her.

"Don't know where he is, but he might show his sorry as up," Daryl said.

Carol started to shake her head, but he continued to speak, talking over her as she muttered out her statement.

"That wasn't what I meant," Carol got out, but she assumed he didn't hear her for his own words.

"But…show up or not," Daryl continued, not paying attention to her shaking her head and offering her food in response to her movement, "you ain't goin' back in that chair, not long as I got any say on it. We're all gonna kill the bastard first chance we get."

He paused a moment.

"What'd you mean?" He asked. Apparently he had heard her, but had been so focused on his own thoughts…and on keeping up with the steady supply of food out of the bowl…that it had taken a moment for his brain to get around to being concerned with her words.

Carol accepted his spoonful of food and swallowed it down. She felt, though, like her question had already been answered. Still, she'd started it, so she had to ask it.

"I meant were Sophia and I safe…here," Carol said. "With you…and…your brother."

Daryl looked at her again, tipped his head slightly to the side, and turned his eyes to what was left in the bowl before he nodded gently.

"Yeah," he said, his voice low. "You safe."


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here.**

**I would like to say that I see this one as being one that "takes a while," so I wanted you to be aware of that if you weren't sure. We're getting there, but we're not in a race.**

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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"Where's Sophia?" Carol asked.

"Merle took her to get a bath," Daryl said. "Shower. Figured she might prefer it over washin' outta some bucket an' he was startin' to smell pretty damn ripe."

Carol's water had arrived just as Daryl had said, in a bucket. She assumed that he, having come back clean after she'd taken a nap during the day, had gone to wherever it was that Sophia was now apparently gone to take a shower.

Daryl had helped Carol take a bath. It was strange to her to have to rely on him for assistance with everything, but it was even odder for Carol that she was finding it easy to allow him to do the things that she never would have imagined she'd be comfortable with. Until she was told that she could undo the binding that was keeping her from jarring her damaged shoulder, she was left feeling pretty helpless. That, coupled with the fact that the few times she'd used the bucket that served as their toilet had taken almost all of the energy that she could muster at all, had made her realize that she was going to be dependent on this man if she was going to recover.

So she was thankful that, at least, he seemed like someone she could depend on.

Maybe, though, it was because he seemed so determined and so dedicated to doing the little tasks that he assigned himself to do.

And, perhaps, it was because he seemed so genuine about doing them.

He had helped her quietly with the bath, and with everything else that had the potential to humiliate her, given that she wasn't entirely comfortable with her body and wouldn't have been comfortable with accepting so much assistance even if that weren't the case, as though it was all the most natural thing that he could ever do. Even now she was, essentially, tucked into bed by his hand with her dinner, gobbled as was customary with his quick feeding habits, still warm in her stomach.

"Is Merle really a good person to…take Sophia to get a bath?" Carol asked.

Daryl looked at her like it was the most bizarre question that she could possibly ask. She almost felt bad, given his expression, that it was something that concerned her.

"Why wouldn't he be?" Daryl asked. "He's gotta bathe too. They got a room with some half ass workin' shower stalls. Three of 'em work on a good day. Prob'ly down there makin' sure don't no damn body fuck with her."

"Daryl," Carol said, "I have to…maybe…tell you something. Or maybe you already know…but, I knew Merle. Before? I knew him in Woodbury."

Daryl chewed his lip like he was uncomfortable.

"You oughta sleep," Daryl said. "I'ma stay up top. In case you need somethin'. Merle'll bring her back soon as they done, you can rest on that. Tomorrow, you don't sleep bad on it? That shoulder can prob'ly come on outta that wrap."

Carol could see that her mention of Merle's presence in Woodbury made Daryl noticeably uncomfortable and she was sorry for that. She hated to cause any discomfort to someone who had been so ungrudgingly kind to her. But it was hard for her to know exactly why the facts that she'd brought up made him act that way without more information.

"He worked with the Governor," Carol pressed. "He worked with my husband."

The moment that Carol saw the man, she'd remembered him immediately. It wasn't just a name that many people seemed to share these days. Her heart had jumped into her throat at the sight of him and the memory of seeing him around the "town." She didn't think that Merle was directly involved with what had happened to her, but it was difficult to erase him entirely from the disturbing flashes that came to her mind given his proximity to the monster that she knew _had _been responsible.

Daryl shifted again, looking not at all at home in his skin at the moment.

"You should sleep," Daryl said, getting up from the bed where he was sitting with her. Carol realized that was his way of saying that, even if there was still something to be discussed, he didn't plan on continuing the conversation.

"I don't hold it against you," Carol offered quietly, taking a chance that she might be able to guess what it was that was on Daryl's mind. "You're not your brother's keeper."

Daryl chewed at his lip. He hummed quietly at her or at her words and studied the floor a moment before he looked at her again, holding her eyes with his.

"He ain't no saint," Daryl said quietly, his voice taking on a slightly different quality than it had before. "I ain't gonna say he is, but he's my brother."

Carol nodded her understanding at him.

They might have continued the conversation, but they were interrupted when the very person they were discussing appeared in the corridor outside of the cell and stopped only a minute before Sophia bounded into the cell, her hair still dripping water from her bath. Merle continued on, his silent delivery made.

"Mama!" Sophia declared happily, almost throwing herself on the bed. "Do you think tomorrow you can take a shower? They're really cool. They're just like the ones at that camp we went to and we can take showers at the same time, but we're in different showers. Side by side."

Carol swallowed back the lump in her throat. It showed up there, without warning, every time she saw Sophia's face. She was so happy to see Sophia…and she was so happy to see that the girl was unharmed. She was unharmed and, no matter how ridiculous their situation might be, she looked like she was _happy_ with everything around her. It was still hard for Carol to believe that they were simply here…that she was here and Sophia was here, even if it was a prison and they knew no one there…and that they were safe together.

And Carol had no idea where Ed was, or if he was even alive, and she didn't want to ask anyone for fear that the answer wouldn't be the one that she wanted. And, she had to face what it said about her when she thought about the answer that she _did want._

For the moment, Carol couldn't speak so she reached and combed her fingertips through the girl's wet hair.

"Your Ma can prob'ly take a shower tomorrow," Daryl said. "If she wants one? She can do it if she wants it."

Carol nodded, thankful that he'd answered for her at the moment, and Sophia smiled at her before she hugged her, more gingerly than before, and set about burrowing in the neck of the ill-fitting shirt that Carol was wearing to look at some of the bandaged injuries, the worst ones being hidden from her.

"You're almost better from everything?" Sophia asked, her fingertip tracing around the edge of one of the bandages that she could easily see.

Carol sucked in a breath.

The hopeful thinking of Sophia had her somewhere on the same scale as Superman. She could recover from everything…from things she didn't want to remember and even some things she couldn't…in less than a day simply because there was someone there to care for her.

But maybe part of that was Carol's fault too. She'd hidden a lot from Sophia to protect her. She'd pretended, many times, that injuries weren't as serious as they were. There was no use complaining at any rate, and she didn't want Sophia to worry about things that were beyond her control.

"I am," Carol said. "Almost better. Feeling even better now that you're here."

She kissed Sophia's face and nuzzled her, still able to remember vividly the very first time she'd done it.

"You can sleep with me," Carol offered. "If you want to?"

"Might not be a good idea," Daryl said quickly. "Not yet…with the shoulder?"

Sophia looked at him, still standing at the edge of the bed like he was about to climb onto the top bunk like he'd said he was going to do earlier, and then she looked back at Carol. She smiled at her.

"He's right…Mama," Sophia said. "And the beds are little. I got my own. It's like yours, on the bottom. I wanted the top but Merle said he wasn't sleeping on no bottom bunk and being in a little metal box."

Carol nodded.

For as much as she tried to hide things from Sophia, she knew that she didn't always manage to hide them. And she knew, too, and it was even clearer now than it had been before, that the girl tried to protect her as much as she tried to protect Sophia.

And she also appreciated that Sophia wasn't sleeping on a top bunk. It had been many years since her daughter had been the type to roll out of her bed, but that didn't mean she wouldn't worry about it if she thought about it being that far for her to go to reach the floor.

"OK," Carol said. "Maybe…another night? When I'm done healing up?"

Sophia nodded.

"Sure, Mama," Sophia said. "Another night when you're feeling better."

Sophia took that as her cue to leave because she started to get up and Carol called her name to get her attention.

"Kiss?" Carol asked.

Sophia smiled again and leaned, kissing Carol on the cheek. The touch made her aware of the bruising on her face that she could ignore, especially since there weren't any mirrors, but the delicate touch of Sophia's lips was worth any ache that the pressure she applied behind the kiss might cause. And Sophia offered, leaning close to Carol, her own cheek for Carol to lean and kiss her return.

"I love you, baby girl," Carol said. "Sweet dreams?"

Sophia got off the bed.

"I love you too, Mama," Sophia said, pushing at Carol to get in position to sleep. Carol obeyed her, her chest aching at the small gesture of her daughter as she fixed the blankets around her, tucking them up under her chin. "Sweet dreams, Mama."

Sophia called a goodnight to Daryl before she rushed over and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him with a hum before she darted out of the cell with the same rush of energy that she'd come into it with.

And Carol was left alone again with Daryl. He stood, for a moment, chewing at his lip with his hand on the upper bunk, keeping his position at the foot of the bed. And then he walked back beside Carol, apparently forgetting for the moment that he'd been "in the process" of going to bed since before Sophia had appeared.

"You need somethin'?" He asked. "Water?"

"No," Carol said.

He nodded and blew out the lamp on the small and crowded table.

"Night, then," Daryl said, navigating back to where he was before in the darkness. Carol sucked in a breath at the jarring motion of the bed as he climbed to the top bunk.

"Daryl?" Carol said into the darkness.

"You need somethin'?" He asked.

"No," Carol said. "Just…to say thank you. It isn't much, but I wanted to say it."

The only response she got back from him was a hum.

Carol lie there in the dark and listened to the sounds around her. There were echoing noises in the prison. There was evidence that others inhabited the space, even if she hadn't really seen anyone besides the vet that had come to check on her. They weren't alone there, even if to her it felt like her cell was the whole world at the moment.

Above her, she heard Daryl start to snore and she realized that he was likely exhausted. He was, no doubt, very nearly running on empty. For whatever reason, he had felt inclined to keep a vigil over her, and maybe she very well owed this man her life, even though she had no idea why he might have made the choice to take on the role that he'd taken in her life.

And she told herself, that though she didn't know how and she didn't know when, somehow she'd make it up to him. And though she sincerely doubted that she could ever truly repay him, because in many ways she saw him as responsible for giving her back her life and for, even more precious to her than her own life, giving her back her daughter, she determined that she would figure out some way to give him something to show her gratitude and appreciation.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter on this one.**

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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"Whole damn lot of 'em's crazy they think he ain't comin'," Merle said as he strolled around the courtyard area purposefully stretching his legs as he went and watching around him as though he could actually see the Governor coming for them before those on watch in guard towers might see him. "Knows where the hell we are an' he's comin' for my ass if he ain't comin' for no damn body else. Don't like nobody leavin'…nobody knows he don't run that place on the up an' up."

"But why the hell's he give a shit?" Daryl asked. "You're gone. Everybody's gone outta there and we don't back in. What the hell's it matter if you know how the hell he runs things?"

Within the prison, things were tense. Merle had woken Daryl this morning, allowing him to "sleep in" until the sun had almost entirely risen because he'd missed out on sleep the night before, and had told him that he needed to speak with him.

Apparently Merle had taken it upon himself to have a little chat with Rick. He was discussing, as he said, logistics.

The Governor ran Woodbury like a town on the surface. Anyone who was brought in was more or less put through the same inspection, even if they were completely unaware that an inspection was taking place. The Governor kept careful logs of who went in and who left Woodbury…whatever their manner of departure was. He also kept careful logs of the positions of people within the community.

It boiled down to two main groups, according to Merle. There were his "soldiers," though he didn't call them that for anyone that wasn't to be privy to the role that they held within Woodbury, and then there were the "sheep."

Anyone who could offer a "tangible" service was automatically under protection by the man. Doctors, Carpenters, Electricians, Mechanics…the tradesmen of the world with something that could benefit him were to live protected and sheltered lives within the walls. Simply put, they provided him the services he needed to create the "Utopia" he saw himself as king as and he made sure no harm, Walker or otherwise, fell to them.

Merle said the only people within the "working" group that were aware at all of what happened there were the medical people, and they were only given as much information as they absolutely had to have in order to perform the tasks the Governor asked of them. Most of them, according to Merle, were smart enough not to ask too many questions. Information was something that you didn't really want to have in Woodbury.

And failure wasn't an option in the town. If you were one of the people chosen to work as one of the Governor's soldiers, hand-picked by him because he thought you had a certain something…something that sounded like a lack of morals and a strong stomach to Daryl…then you didn't fail. You pledged loyalty to him and you went through with whatever you were assigned to do, promising to do your duty until death. Because, if you failed? Death was certain upon your return.

The sheep, of course, came and went and lived their little fabricated "Pleasantville" lives with no knowledge of what was really happening within the walls or outside of it. The Governor gave them "news" reports that were what he wanted them to hear and he covered everything that might have been suspicious quickly and carefully with fabricated stories that would strike fear into his sheep's hearts just before he soothed them over with the promise that their fearless leader had kept them all safe once more and would continue to do so…because that's what Woodbury was about.

As a result, of course, all the sheep loved him. They would, like anyone who believed that they were served by such a kind and giving leader, die for him if they had to, but he promised that it would never come that.

And maybe it wouldn't.

The man was no fool, though, and he was perfectly aware that it could and prepared to sacrifice them down to the last woman and child if he had to, just to protect something that was really only something in his mind…because without his sheep, he was really nothing but a crazy man who had a hope that there would someday be a cure. A cure he hoped, according to Merle, would not only wipe out the virus, but would have the ability to bring back those already afflicted, though no one was entirely certain why this hope was one that he clung to so desperately.

"It matters 'cause he's fuckin' crazy," Merle said. "You got cloth for ears? Damn asshole's collectin' people just the same as he's collectin' guns and supplies. You know how the hell he runs things, get out? You could build your own damn…fuckin' army or some shit…go the fuck back an' blow the whole thing up. Take over his damn lil' town and dethrone him."

"We don't want his damn town," Daryl said. "Wouldn'ta never had shit to do with him if your stupid ass hadn't gone an' kidnapped Glenn and Maggie. That's on your ass. Damn samurai hauled us in there to get 'em back or we wouldn'ta even known there was no Woodbury."

Merle chuckled.

"I kidnapped the damn Chinese kid to find out about your sorry ass," Merle said. "And that damn samurai's got her head right up on there on the most wanted list. He'll come for her sure as he comes for me. Comin' for that woman and kid too."

"Well he ain't gettin' nobody," Daryl responded. "Fuck him."

"Your pal, Rick? Thinks the Governor's gonna forget about it all," Merle said. "Thinks it's all gonna be…like water under the bridge. Forget the whole damn thing happened and go on about his life."

"That's what he oughta do," Daryl said, half agreeing with Rick in his mind.

"We ain't talkin' 'bout a man with no damn sense," Merle said. "Like a dog with a bone, Derlina, he ain't gonna forget. Besides, now he knows this place is here…he wants whatever the hell you got. Offer'd normally be, since you got women and children, that you can come in peace. Buddy on up, come and get sorted. Be part of Woodbury. That offer ain't on the table no more, though, no sir. You can bet'cha lil' raisin balls on that. Now he comes it'll be for blood."

Merle stopped walking and burrowed around in his pocket. He tossed a pack of cigarettes at Daryl, one of several packs that Daryl had in a paper bag that he'd retrieved when he'd gone to clean out his perch and move his meagre belongings into the cell with the woman…with his patient. Daryl caught it and, without waiting for explanation, reached in and plucked out two cigarettes. He lit them, passing one of them to Merle before he pocketed the pack that had been his to begin with.

"Asshole," Merle muttered, accepting the cigarette.

"I ain't the damn asshole," Daryl responded. "How the hell you end up tangled up with that crazy fucker in the first place? You always done the same damn thing, Merle…disappear…tangle your ass up with the wrong damn people…and then show back up wantin' me to help get you outta more trouble than you know what the hell to do with."

"Fuck you, lil' brother," Merle commented, though his tone of voice, for once, didn't go at all with his words. He seemed, honestly, more tired than Daryl was accustomed to seeing him act. Of course, life had to catch up with everyone someday and Merle hadn't exactly chosen, once it had been his to choose, the smoothest and easiest paths for himself.

Merle made his way over to a picnic table, walked a circle around it, obviously judging its integrity, and then sat on the piece of furniture.

"Asshole found me after I got the hell off the roof," Merle said. "Wandering my ass through Atlanta, alone? Ain't had nothin' but one a' them damn fire hatchets and was bleeding out fast enough to call every rotted son of a bitch up from damn…Florida or some shit. Took me in, fed me, got me healed up. Gave me a damn place in that town, gave me a job. Gave me a fuckin' purpose Daryl. It weren't no good damn purpose, but it was the first one I had."

They both fell silent a moment as Daryl realized he didn't quite know how to respond to Merle. In part, he knew better than to respond too warmly or emotionally because Merle wouldn't like it, but there was also the issue that Daryl understood exactly what Merle was saying.

Sometimes you could end up in some pretty bad situations just because someone gave a damn about you enough to have you there…even if you didn't particularly care for where you were or who you were with.

Daryl wasn't exactly the lord of his castle in this group, either.

"What the hell was I gonna do, Daryl? Stand around waitin' for you when you weren't comin' back? Wait on ya damn pal, Rick, to come back and finish the damn job he started?" Merle added.

He hummed.

"No…mmm mmm," he said. "Ole Merle weren't standin' 'round with his sack in his hands waitin' on some damn body to come back…so I went were the hell they needed me…where the hell they wanted me…fuck…I was a damn superstar half the damn time. Appreciated."

"We come back for ya," Daryl said.

Merle didn't look at him, and maybe that was the worst part of the moment. His brother wasn't looking at him because he felt like he couldn't look at him. And they might bust each other's balls, but that was their prerogative. At the end of it all, though, Merle was his brother…and even if he wasn't much to count on sometimes, there'd been plenty of times when he'd been the only damn thing that Daryl had in the world.

"We did," Daryl said. "Come back for you…all you had to do was wait. Didn't nobody mean for you to get stuck up on that roof…was an accident. Plain and simple. Was an accident and it wouldn'ta happened if you weren't such a damn ignorant asshole."

Merle chuckled.

"Yeah…well…this asshole weren't standin' around waitin'," Merle said.

He stood up now from where he'd been sitting. Daryl watched as Merle tried to coax one last drag off a cigarette that was entirely spent and he fished the pack back out of his pocket and lit another one for both of them. He passed the cigarette to Merle and knocked his hand when he wasn't going to take it at first. Finally, Merle accepted it.

"Is it an accident, Daryl? That'cha pal Rick's treatin' us all like we're the hardened criminals in this here prison?" Merle asked, looking at Daryl now and sucking his teeth. "That he's actin' like we the damn animals should be kept in cages…kept under watch…when he's the one made chew my own damn hand off to survive?"

Merle shook his head.

"Don't trust him no damn farther than the Governor lil' brother," Merle said. "Give you somethin' to do…give you a purpose…but just so long as it's serving him. The butcher don't really love the sheep, ya know?"

Merle chuckled again and directed his feet, now, back in the direction of the prison that they'd left earlier.

"Rick wants to wait," Merle said. "All I'ma say is better get prepared while we waitin' else the Governor's gonna come and find the whole lot of us just standin' around with our dicks in our hands."

He stopped his steps and turned back to Daryl a moment, contemplating him and visibly running his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

"Maybe ya pal, Rick, don't got no use for you no more," Merle said. "Reckon you look hard enough, though…you'll find you got you somethin' to do…somethin' to keep ya occupied. Look hard enough? You'll find you some…reason."

Daryl took a few steps toward his brother.

"You got one, I reckon? Now you without the Governor? Ain't got him tellin' you that 'cause you're working for a damn crazy man you're a decent human being?" Daryl asked. "You got somethin' now?"

Merle sucked his teeth loudly and hummed, nodding slightly.

"I do," he said. He turned back toward the prison. "Hidin' right over there just on the other side a' that damn dumpster…thinks I don't know it."

Daryl glanced in the direction of the dumpster just as Merle yelled in that direction for her to come on out, she didn't have any business being there anyway when she was told to keep her skinny ass inside. Sophia appeared, sliding out from her hiding place, and did her best to straighten herself up to her full, unimpressive and non-threatening, height.

And Daryl hummed to himself, without saying a word.

Maybe the Dixons did, after all of this, have some kind of purpose…some reason to keep on going. Maybe they'd never amount to anything after all, and maybe neither of them would never be a single thing to the world.

But maybe it wasn't what the world valued that mattered so much these days.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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"You think he's coming here?" Carol asked.

Her head still didn't feel like her own at times, and her reality felt even less so. It was all too much to take in, especially in such a short span of time. It was so much, in fact, that she couldn't even begin to sort it all.

And now, the man that she was starting to trust…the man that she was starting to think had been sent to her as some kind of very unexpected and entirely not stereotypical guardian angel…was telling her that a man who lived in the realm of her nightmares might very well appear again.

"I don't think he's comin'," Daryl commented, hovering somewhat over her while she sat on the bed, his arm propped on the bunk above her while he smoked with the other hand. "I know he is. Sooner rather than later, I'd say. But he ain't gonna just come. Gonna wait until we got our guard down…given the fools 'round here, though? Asshole could come any damn time he wants. Ain't a guard up in the whole damn place."

Carol listened to him and took in the information that she offered as thoroughly as she could. She wasn't really surprised. She would doubt nothing anyone told her about the Governor, just so long as it was something terrible.

"When do you think?" She asked.

"Ain't got no damn way a' knowin that," Daryl said.

"I know you don't _know_ when, but when do you think?" Carol pressed. She swallowed. "I trust your instinct."

Daryl looked at her a moment, held her eyes with his in the slightly unnerving manner that he had of doing that, and then he shook his head slightly.

"I'd say we got a week…seven days…tops," Daryl said. "He's watchin' us even now, if what Merle says is true. Got people watchin'. He's gonna wait. Get everyone comfortable and thinkin' he ain't comin', but he's gonna come. Makin' sure we don't make no move."

"What are we going to do?" Carol asked.

Daryl stepped away from his position and paced around the cell before he sat, hard and slouching from his landing, in the chair in the corner of the cell.

"We gonna figure out how to be ready," Daryl said. "This place's got weapons, but it ain't got nothin' like what Merle says he got. We don't know how many people he's bringin'…we don't know shit."

"Then how'll we be ready?" Carol asked.

She felt a churning feeling in her stomach. The feeling of panic that rose up when she realized she could barely move. She could barely even care for her own most basic needs. She wasn't sure how in the world she was going to be of any use to anyone…but she knew that for Sophia? For Sophia she had to find whatever was left inside of her to fight the man and whoever he might bring. At least this time, she'd be fighting him when he didn't have the advantage of chaining her to something first.

"We'll be ready," Daryl said.

His voice sounded odd. It sounded like he was confident in his response, on the one hand, but on the other it sounded as though he didn't believe it at all. Maybe he wasn't sure, but he was trying to keep the faith for her. Whatever it was, Carol thought it was important not to question him. He needed her, at the moment, to believe him. So she would believe him.

He hadn't given her any reason, as of yet, not to believe anything he said.

She swallowed again, considering what he was telling her.

"I'll do what I can do," she said.

"You're stayin' outta the way," Daryl said.

"I'll do what needs to be done," Carol said. "But…I do want Sophia out of the way. I want her…"

She stopped because she realized that she didn't have any more of a plan than he did. She didn't even have the home field advantage of knowing anything about this prison beyond the cell that she was in, though he promised to take her that evening for a shower, and to take her, the next day if she was up to it, for a short walk in the courtyard near their somewhat annexed part of the prison.

"I just want her somewhere where, no matter what happens, she's got a chance," Carol said.

Daryl stared at her again, chewing visibly at the inside of his lip while he did so, working over the problem at the same time as he worked over the piece of his own skin.

"She's gonna be outta the way too," Daryl said. "Both of you are. You ain't in no condition and she's a kid. Both of ya gonna be outta the way…that's all that's gettin' said on that matter. You good with babies?"

Carol felt her own jaw slack in confusion.

"What?" She asked.

"You…good…with…babies?" Daryl repeated, drawing out the question like he supposed she hadn't understood the actual words, though that wouldn't be entirely impossible given the fact that they weren't entirely sure that she wasn't still recovering from a pretty decent concussion.

"I mean," Carol stuttered out, not sure how to answer the question, "I guess I am."

"Settled then," Daryl said. "Rick's got a baby. Gonna need someone to watch it if we all goin' to the front. You gonna stay with the baby."

"I should be out there…" Carol started, but she got cut off.

"You will be," Daryl said. "One day…but this ain't gonna be that day, and no time in a couple weeks is gonna be it neither. No big deal…you watch the kids. We all go belly up, get the hell outta here with 'em best you can."

Daryl stood up like he was going to leave the space.

"Daryl?" Carol called at him.

He turned around to face her, obviously waiting on her to say what was on her mind.

"My husband," she said, not sure exactly how to go about saying what she wanted to say.

Daryl sucked his teeth.

"He might…I don't know if he's…" Carol couldn't, not for the life of her, find the words that she wanted to say, even though she knew in her mind that she wanted to, what? She wanted to _warn _him about Ed?

Daryl shook his head at her.

"Don't even think about him," Daryl said. "Sorry…I reckon…but Merle says he's good an' dead."

Carol almost laughed at the way that the words were delivered to her. Or maybe she almost laughed at the relief she felt of being, all at once, so absolutely sure that Ed was gone, once and for all, from her life entirely.

"Don't be sorry," she said. "I'm happy to hear it."

Daryl stared at her a moment longer, nodded his head slightly, and ducked out the cell without another word.

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"You're not wrong you know," Michonne said. "About wanting to be ready?"

Daryl turned quickly, surprised by the sound of the woman's voice. He hadn't expected anyone to notice him stepping into the space where they stored the weapons that had been found over their time searching out what was left now that the world had gone to shit.

He prided himself on moving fairly quietly…but the samurai was even quieter than he was.

"What do you want?" Daryl asked.

"To help," Michonne said.

Daryl chuckled to himself.

"Run yourself right on back to Rick and his picks," Daryl said. "I don't want you here. You picked your side."

Michonne gave him something of a smile, even if it appeared to be more of an ironic smile than a smile of genuine amusement, and walked in something of a circle around him.

"I'm on no side," Michonne said. "I'm on the outside here, maybe more than you. No one trusts me…and neither do you. But I can help."

"Why would you even care if you don't got no involvement?" Daryl responded, keeping an eye on her, not quite trusting her enough himself to take his eyes off of her.

She tipped her head to the side.

"He wants me dead as much as he wants any of you dead," she said. "Maybe more. I've got my own reasons for wanting him dead."

"Why you wanna side up with us?" Daryl said. "You can bet'cha ass that soon as Carol's better? Rick's gonna run us outta this prison on a rail. Maybe before then. That ain't the kinda people you wanna help if you was lookin' to keep right on livin' here."

"Who said I was?" Michonne challenged. "I've already been helping you if you weren't too damn blind to see it."

Daryl stared at her and she stared back at him. For a moment neither of them spoke and neither of them moved. Daryl realized that if he didn't take the initiative to break the eye contact, they weren't likely to move. This was a game that she wasn't going to lose at, and he didn't care. He had more important things to do. He had, in his opinion, more important things on the line.

"The hell you talkin' about?" He asked.

"Who do you think brought you the water? Who do you think stole you the food? The clothes? Washed your…things?" Michonne asked.

Daryl felt his stomach churn at the realization that the prison elf, as he'd come to think of whoever their quiet delivery person, was standing a few feet away from him.

"Why?" He asked. It was all he could manage to say at the moment.

"Doesn't matter," Michonne responded. "I helped you then. I'll help you now. And I want to help when the Governor comes…because he is coming."

Daryl swallowed, his interest now held by the woman, and leaned against the hard wooden table he'd been examining the weapons on before.

"What's in it for you?" He asked.

Michonne took to movement again and completed a circle around, Daryl following her with his body and his eyes, until she was on the other side of the table from him. She reached and touched one of the guns on the table with just her fingertips.

"The Governor has something…_somebody_…I want. I'd kill him for that alone," Michonne said. "But…if we kill him? If we beat him at his own game? I'm not as keen on travelling alone as I was. It's a life, and you can make it…but it's survival at its rawest. If Rick wants you out? I want to go too."

Daryl chuckled to himself.

"You realize where the hell I go, Merle goes?" Rick asked.

Michonne rolled her eyes up toward his again.

"He doesn't know how to behave?" Michonne asked. "Not trained to play well with others?"

Daryl chuckled again. He shook his head.

Something like a smile curled across her lips and faded so quickly that Daryl almost could be convinced that it had never been there to begin with.

"Tell him I can play as nicely as he can," she said. "Tell him…that if he can't play well with others? I may just find him a _leash_."

Daryl stared at her, not quite sure what she meant, but hearing the touch of menace in her voice.

"You got some ideas? Or you waitin' for us to tell you what the hell to do?" Daryl asked.

"You take the message to Merle," Michonne said. "Then you talk to me. It'd be better if this fight never came to the prison…but you talk to him, then you talk to me."

"Where'm I supposed to talk to you? If Merle wants to play nice with you?" Daryl asked.

Michonne started walking again, this time with more sound than she'd approached with, heading for the door she'd apparently entered through since there was no other way for her to come into the space.

"I'll find you," she said. "Don't you worry about that. It's a small world…_after all_."


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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"Rick's wrong, you know?" Sophia said. "It's dumb not to get ready for the Governor if he's coming and that's gonna get him killed just like it's gonna get everyone killed."

"Go to sleep," Merle said from his seat at the table, flipping old cards over and over in a game he was playing with himself to pass the time, trying to guess the card that would come next. So far he hadn't gotten a single one right…and Sophia had been the one to collect the cards up for him the last time that he'd made it through the entire deck.

"He's wrong too, you know?" Sophia said, apparently not taking his command that she sleep to heart in the slightest. "Saying you were…an asshole? That you were just trying to get us all killed? He was wrong."

Merle chuckled to himself.

"That's where the hell ya ass is wrong," he commented. He fiddled around with the pack of cigarettes he had in his pocket and came out with one, placing it between his lips before he started with the lighter. Sophia quickly got off her bunk, took the lighter quicker than he could snatch it back from her, and flicked it so she could hold the flame steady for him to light the cigarette.

He stared at her, mumbled a thanks, and then took a long draw off the cigarette while he watched her get back into the bunk and under the prison blankets.

"I am an asshole," Merle said, turning his attention back to the cards for a moment, the cigarette tightly held between his lips.

"But a different _kind_ of asshole?" Sophia asked, perching herself on her elbows.

Merle looked at her.

"Assholes an asshole," he commented. "Spade's a fuckin' spade. Ya Ma know ya say asshole?"

Sophia looked at him, owl eyed, and shook her head quickly. Merle chuckled and flicked cigarette ash to the floor.

"Course she don't," he muttered.

"Are you gonna tell her?" Sophia asked.

Merle chuckled again.

"I'm an asshole," he said. "Spade's a spade…an' I don't give one hot shit."

"Have you killed people?" Sophia asked.

"Hard to find somebody these days ain't," Merle commented. "But…yeah. I killed more of'm I reckon than other people have."

"If you had to kill somebody?" Sophia said. "If they were bad? I guess…anybody would kill somebody like that."

Merle hummed.

"Did you kill my Daddy?" Sophia asked.

Merle stopped his fiddling with the cards and looked at the girl watching him over her prison blankets.

He sucked his teeth at her.

Merle didn't consider himself the kind of person who was really "kid friendly". It just wasn't what the hell he did. Yet, here the hell he sat playing something like nanny to this freckle faced kid.

And normally he would have been pissed off by something like that. Normally he figured he might have said something pissy to the kid or to her parents.

But at the moment, all he could think was that he was pretty damn sorry this freckle faced little girl was already learning to justify killing people. Because even Merle Dixon had taken a while to start to justify it. Even Merle had felt rattled the first time he'd done it…and the second too.

He swallowed and shook his head at her.

"No," he said. "I didn't kill ya old man. Got told about it…but I weren't sent out to do it. Was too busy takin' care a' other shit the Governor was handin' people out to do 'cause he ain't had the damn balls nor the stomach to do his own damn dirty work."

He scrubbed his cigarette on the floor, under the toe of his boot, and he was surprised when, like a shot, Sophia was out of her bed and standing in front of him, her skinny little fingers rooting in his pocket without permission. She came out with the pack of cigarettes and offered him another.

"The hell you doin'?" He asked.

"You always smoke two," Sophia said. "When you start? You always…you have two."

Merle smirked at her and accepted the cigarette, mumbling thanks again when she found and flicked the lighter for him once more.

"Told ya ass to be in that bed," he commented when she stood there, right in front of him, staring at him. She sat on the bed, but didn't get into it and didn't pull the blanket over her. She simply stared at him like she was trying to see something.

"Got a damn booger or what?" He asked, wiping at his nose.

Sophia giggled at him and shook her head.

Merle removed the cigarette from his mouth, blew out the smoke, and regarded her looking at him.

"I'm sorry…ya know? Bout'cha ole man," Merle said.

Sophia continued to stare for a moment before she spoke.

"Is it bad," she asked, her voice barely above a whisper this time, "if I'm not? Sorry I mean?"

Merle felt a catch. He cleared his throat and shook his head. He didn't know too much about Ed, but he knew enough that he had a pretty good feeling about what kind of man he was. He'd seen Carol enough, too, around Woodbury…especially working at the store where she often had her assignments…that he knew he raised his hand to her on more than one occasion, even if nobody talked about it.

And now Merle wondered if he'd done the same to Sophia.

Merle could excuse a lot of asshole behavior. But there were some things he just couldn't excuse. Maybe Sophia was right, maybe there were different kinds of assholes.

And maybe that's why he'd been left out of the loop on some of the things that the Governor did. Maybe there were things that happened in Woodbury he'd never even known about. And maybe Ed had known about them…maybe that had been just one thing that had made him so "valuable" to the Governor.

Merle hummed at her.

"Nah," he said. "I weren't sorry to see my old man gone neither. Not really. Sorry…I guess that the sorry son of a bitch weren't never nothin' worth missin', but I weren't sorry he was gone."

He drew on the cigarette.

"Thought I told ya ass ta get in bed?" Merle said.

Sophia sighed and got back into the bed.

"You were supposed to read to me," she said. "You said you would after I showered, and I showered, but you haven't read yet."

Merle reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the Bible, the only book they had, and looked at it in his hand. He dropped it on the table, stuck his finger in, selection meaning little to him, and flipped the book open. He reached back toward the small table for the lamp and Sophia sat up enough to pass it to him.

Merle cleared his throat and looked over the words a moment before he selected a random spot at which to start reading, the where and the when mattering little when he read to Sophia.

"Through him we also obtained access by faith into this grace'n which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferin's, knowin' that sufferin' produces endurance, an' endurance produces character, an' character produces hope, an' hope doesn't put us to shame…"

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Daryl was in awe of Carol at various moments. He was amazed at how she bit back what he knew had to be painful…how she denied that anything bothered her. It was like she felt that if she never admitted how she felt, if she never brought her suffering to light, then it simply wouldn't exist.

And perhaps there was some truth to it since she seemed to be getting better, no matter how small the progress was, with every hour.

Hershel said, before Daryl even brought her to the showers, that she could remove her arm from the sling that held it into place. Her shoulder wasn't healed, not entirely, but it could at least be moved. The wrist, on the other hand, would need to remain splinted for the time being, and Daryl determined to come up with something better for a splint than the broken wood that was currently in place.

Without fighting him at all, Carol accepted Daryl's support as he took her to the showers and she accepted his assistance in undressing and finding her way into one of the stalls to take advantage of what they had in the way of running water.

And he stood just outside, waiting to see if she needed more assistance.

"You…uh…ya OK?" He asked.

There wasn't any response from her. Daryl threaded his fingers in the flimsy plastic curtain and peeked in. She was simply standing under the spray at the moment, or at least under as much spray as the showers had to offer.

"There ain't no shame in needin' help," Daryl said.

"I didn't see any mirrors when we came in," Carol said. "Is that so no one knows what they look like these days? Or were there never any mirrors?"

Daryl looked around. He'd never noticed it before, but now that she mentioned it, he realized there were no mirrors. There were places where it appeared there had once been mirrors, but they were no longer there.

He hummed.

"Don't know," he said. "Far as I know? Weren't none when we got here. Was a prison, though. Figure somethin' like that? Glass? Mighta been took down."

She offered her own hum in response.

"Don't matter none no way," Daryl said, musing a moment longer over the mirrors now that she'd brought their absence to his attention. "Ain't like I got no desire to see what the hell I look like."

He heard Carol chuckle, the laugh more sincere than some that she had given…some that she had forced…here and there to cover her pain.

"I don't need one either," she said. "I don't want to know any more than I can see. I just thought it was odd…that there are none."

Daryl pushed the curtain open just enough to see her without simply peeking through his own made crack.

"You need to wash," Daryl said. "If you gonna. Ain't tryin' ta boss ya ass, but the hot water here don't last too long and you'll get frost bite on your ass if you let it run cold…'cause these showers got two damn temperatures. Hot and freeze ya nuts off cold."

Carol looked at him then and laughed.

And he laughed too because the laugh that she let out was a laugh that was contagious. And the smile on her face? It was genuine and it was bright…and it was beautiful. It was the kind of smile that you seldom saw these days or any days in the past…but it was the kind of smile that Daryl wished he saw more often.

"Help me?" Carol asked.

She started to hand him the soap and prison rag he'd given her and he knew immediately why it was that she hadn't progressed. For as much as she might like to hide it, stiffness was settling into her body with the healing and she couldn't just wish it away.

"Stiff as a board, huh?" He commented. He reached to take the soap.

"You're going to get wet," Carol commented.

He considered it a moment and shucked off, before he went into the stall, his socks and shoes and the shirt that he was wearing, leaving his pants on because they needed to be washed at any rate.

And he noticed Carol looking at him for a second, but it was only natural…it was a normal reaction to someone not wearing clothes. It was what everybody did. It absolutely couldn't be helped.

At least, that's what he told himself when he couldn't help but look at her…even when it wasn't necessary.

"Turn around?" He asked. "Do ya back first…"

Carol closed her eyes a moment and Daryl didn't bother to ask himself at the moment what she was closing them to, and she turned around, letting out a deep breath that made her shoulders sink a little when she did.

"It'll be nice to be clean," Carol said. "Not that…I don't mean to say that you haven't helped me and you really have…"

Daryl cleared his throat loudly, stopping her almost compulsive need to apologize to him at the moment. He knew what she meant, and he didn't need her to feel guilty for simply saying that a real bath was going to be preferable to a sponge bath, no matter how well-intended the sponge bath might be.

"But you gonna sleep good tonight," Daryl offered, washing her back and doing his best not to pay any more attention to her here than he normally did when helping her wash in the cell, "after a good bath an' all…"


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**Happy New Year's to everyone! **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"If he comes here," Michonne said, "then he's not coming alone and he's not coming to have a chat."

"And who the hell's gonna handle him if we go there?" Merle spat. "We won't get in the fuckin' walls before someone snipes our asses and makes him out to be a damn hero for it."

"They can't snipe me if they can't see me," Michonne said. "We're not walking up to the gates and knocking like the Avon lady."

Daryl snorted and sat back a little more against the wall that was supporting him.

Merle had agreed to work with Michonne with less trouble than Daryl had actually thought it might take to convince him. The fact that they had a common enemy seemed to make a world of difference on Merle's views. He didn't want the Governor coming there any more than she did, and he wanted the man dead every bit as much as she did. Both agreed that they could never live in any kind of peace as long as the man was alive. It would always feel like he was just over their shoulders.

They would work together because they were working toward a common goal.

And now the three of them were "meeting" in one of the empty cells in a virtually unused portion of the prison. Daryl and the others had cleared it out when they were making a space for some prisoners who had met, one way or another, an unfortunate and early end, but since then the space had simply sat there empty and haunted with the ghosts of the prisoners and cops that had died in the place.

They didn't want to meet anywhere close to Rick and "his group" because they had a pretty good inclination that he wasn't going to be on their side at any rate.

Daryl could say, pretty confidently, that Rick had never been entirely reliable as a leader. He'd always had a clear dedication, even while saying that everything he did was for the good of the group, to looking out for "his" first and everyone else later.

Daryl could also say that things had definitely taken a turn for the worse since Rick's wife had died giving birth to the baby that they now had to look out for. He'd taken a fast and hard trip on the crazy train and he hadn't come back into the station as far as Daryl could tell.

And the Governor?

He was nuts too.

So really, if the two collided, it would be a case of which brand of crazy was strong enough to overcome the other.

And right now, Rick was under some kind of belief that they could simply coexist. Maybe if they laid low, if they didn't show their faces, the Governor would forget about them. And maybe it was a good plan, but Daryl was learning from Merle and Michonne both that the Governor wasn't exactly the kind of man to forgive and forget. And beyond that? He wanted whatever they had, however little it might be, for himself.

"How the hell you figurin' on gettin' in and not gettin' your ass seen?" Merle asked. "Last damn time we was in there we barely made it out alive."

"But we made it out alive," Michonne said. "We go back and we do it at night. You know that place better than I do, better than even the Governor probably does. You tell us where we go in, and that's where we go in. To do this? We've gotta trust each other."

"OK," Daryl said, feeling like they were starting to reach a point that was actually going to get them somewhere, because Michonne was right…to get anywhere, they were going to have to start from a place of trust. They were going to have to start from a point of equality among them all. "We get in, let's just say we do. What the hell we doin' 'cause we gotta have a damn plan to leave with his ass dead an' our asses not."

Merle sat, looking back and forth between them, and clearly thinking for a moment.

"At night he's alone," Merle said. "We get into the place? Ain't too damn much trouble take out his sorry ass. Get in, get it done."

"I'll help get you two in," Michonne said. "I'll help get you to where he is. If I do? Can you kill him?"

Merle shrugged and looked back toward Daryl.

"Hell…yeah…we can kill him if his ass is right there," Merle said with a chuckle. "Where the hell you goin'?"

"I've got something to do," Michonne said. "Got something to get."

Merle chuckled again and Daryl saw a change in his expression.

"Don't'cha mean some_one_?" Merle said, drawing it out.

Daryl saw Michonne look away from him, a change in her demeanor for the moment, and Merle chuckled again and looked back at Daryl.

"_Blondie_," Merle slurred at Daryl. "Fuckin' Andrea."

Daryl felt struck for a moment. He furrowed his brow at his brother and shook his head.

"Andrea's dead," Daryl offered.

Merle shook his head.

"Hell she is," Merle said. "Come into Woodbury not too damn long ago…with this one. But…uh…she's been kinda busy. Been kinda occupied. Ridin' the Governor's dick an' all."

Daryl glanced at Michonne and she was glaring at Merle, her lips drawn tighter than before. This was most assuredly a tender spot for her, and Daryl wasn't even trying to wrap his mind around all the reasons that might be true. After all, he had been under the impression that Andrea was dead…she'd died when they'd left Hershel's farm.

"Andrea's dead," Daryl said, still not believing it entirely.

Merle growled.

"Might be now," he said. "Mi-chonne here? Gettin' away? Mighta pissed his ass off good enough he killed her for the hell of it, but she weren't dead last damn time I laid eyes on her."

Daryl looked at Michonne.

"We left a farm…she got took down by Walkers," Daryl said.

Michonne turned the glare to him, but it softened a little when she let her eyes meet his.

"I found Andrea, in the woods," Michonne said. "About ten months ago? Maybe. She'd been screwed over. Left behind. The people she counted as friends? Were good enough friends that they left her for Walker food."

Daryl swallowed, his stomach turning a little at the thought of having left the woman behind.

He shook his head, not even able to rationalize for himself at the moment why he didn't want to believe what was obviously true.

"We were goin' back for her," Daryl said. "Were goin' back, but she went down. Lori seen her go down. T-Dog…she went down."

He realized, even as he said it, that he was supporting something he no longer believed. And it bothered him, maybe, because even when they'd agreed to leave her behind, even when they'd insisted that she was gone, he'd had a feeling that she wasn't dead. He'd had a feeling they gave up on her too easy.

They gave up on people too easily.

Rick gave up on people too easily.

"Left her behind, like trash," Merle said. He chuckled again, a laugh that Daryl knew well and he knew it wasn't genuine at all. "Left her behind…but'cha buddy Rick? He's good at that shit, ain't he lil' brother."

"What the hell's she doin' with this crazy ass fucker?" Daryl asked.

Merle chuckled.

"Someone leave your ass behind? The be-ne-volent Governor offers you a key to his own little fucked up Paradise?" Merle offered. "You take the fuckin' key…or…in her case, the damn dick."

A quick glance at Michonne told Daryl that her hackles were up.

"He fools people," Michonne said. "He's fooled almost everybody there. Andrea didn't see through it. She…just didn't see what he was."

Daryl could hear something in her voice. Maybe it was hurt? He didn't know what had happened there, but there was something about the situation that made it hit very close for Michonne. He knew, whether he heard it or not, that there was a story there.

"But you did?" Daryl asked.

Michonne stared at him but didn't respond. She wouldn't be made to speak if she didn't have an inclination to do so.

"You still want her back?" Daryl said. "You still want us to get her?"

"Gonna be hard enough to kill the damn asshole," Merle said. "If she ain't out in the damn open and willin' to go? We can't run no fuckin' rescue mission."

Daryl shot a warning look at his brother and then returned his gaze back to Michonne. She nodded her head slightly, either at his question or at Merle's statement.

"I'll get you in," Michonne said. "I'll get you to him. You two good ole boys oughta be able to kill one man. When you're done? Get out of Woodbury the best way you can. I don't need anybody's help. I'll get Andrea myself."

Merle hummed like he was satisfied with this, but Daryl shook his head.

"No," he said. "We go in together, we take care of the asshole together, we get Andrea together, and we get the hell out…nobody's leavin' any damn body else behind."

"Reckon we all get our asses killed together too?" Merle asked.

"If that's what happens," Daryl said.

"Suit yourself," Michonne said. "But if you come with me? You came because you wanted to. Not because I made you."

"When the hell we goin'?" Daryl asked.

That struck Merle and Michonne both silent. He could tell that they both had something they wanted to say, they both had ideas about when they should go, but neither of them wanted to be the one, at the moment, to say exactly when they'd move out for this possible suicide mission.

And maybe it was a suicide mission, but so was waiting on him to come…and going to him? It meant, at least, that the prison wouldn't fall. It meant that everyone there would survive, and they would do it without a madman in their back yard…even if there was a possible madman within their very walls. At least, maybe, there was hope for Rick.

One look at what he'd done to Carol and Daryl, at least, knew ther was no hope for the Governor.

"When the hell we goin'?" Daryl repeated. "You say tonight, we go tonight…I don't give a damn."

The two exchanged a look.

"The sooner we go," Michonne said quietly, "the better."

Merle grunted like he agreed with her, something that might not happen all that often.

"Longer we wait," Merle added, "better the chance is his ass pops up here with a couple dozen automatic weapons. And he's got some heavy damn artillery."

Daryl sighed.

"Tonight or can we sleep on it? Figure out what to say around here?" Daryl asked.

_Figure out what to tell Carol and Sophia to do if they never came back._

But he never said the rest of what he was thinking.

"We can wait until tomorrow," Michonne said. "I think we've got a day, but we really shouldn't wait too much longer than that. It'll give Merle time to figure out the best place for us to go in, and it'll give me a little more time to figure out a plan of attack for us…something to get us in and out with the least chance of casualty."

Before they could continue to say much more on the issue, there was screaming from the courtyard of the prison, all of the buildings somewhat backed up to it, this one being no different, that drew all their attention.

Daryl got up from his spot and made his way to the door that opened to the courtyard, not far from where they were hunkered down in discussion, and peeked out of it to try and see what was happening at a distance.

Down near the gates he could make out that someone was there. Someone had come to the prison and they were being let into the gates, but it didn't look like they were coming in peacefully…or maybe the lack of peace was coming from their side.

Daryl couldn't make out much, though, besides Rick and a few others huddled around someone that was now on the ground in the confusion.

"Looks like we got guests," Daryl said.

When he turned back to look at Merle and Michonne, both of them were on their feet and both of them were standing fairly close to him.

"The Governor?" Michonne asked.

"Don't think so," Daryl said. "But I wouldn't be surprised if it ain't some damn body he knows…"

"Means we know 'em too," Merle said. "Better find the fuck out if we gotta get our asses there tonight…we might be fresh outta damn time…"

Daryl looked at Michonne and she nodded slightly her agreement.

"Let's go see what the hell he wants," Daryl said, starting out the door with both of them close behind him.


	13. Chapter 13

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl leaned against the wall just inside the entrance of the part of the prison that they all resided in. He, Merle, and Michonne, had barely slipped inside the door, nobody having missed them and nobody asking where they'd come from…not caring at all in the commotion…and had found spots to blend in with the brick wall.

But as soon as Daryl saw who it was that Rick had been manhandling in the yard, he thought that things just got a little more interesting and either a little more complicated, or a little less complicated.

Because the ghost that they'd been discussing, Andrea, was standing in front of them. She was dirty, probably from her rolling about on the ground, but otherwise she seemed as healthy and whole as she'd ever been.

And she was very much alive. It was very much the opposite of what they'd all expected. And Daryl could tell he wasn't the only one a little shaken by the news.

Even Andrea appeared to be shaking slightly in the face of so many people she'd probably counted as long gone from her life.

"What do you want?" Rick asked.

"It's nice to see you too!" Andrea shot back. "Do I get to know why I'm being treated like Judas?"

"We're real careful these days about who we let in here and who we don't," Rick said.

Daryl bumped Michonne, leaning close enough to her to speak without being heard.

"Rick know about Andrea and the Governor?" He asked.

"I might have mentioned it," Michonne said. "Among other things when he was threatening to kill me."

Daryl bit the inside of his mouth not to laugh at the fact that Rick was starting to develop something of a reputation. And he certainly hadn't treated Michonne with a great deal of kindness when she'd first appeared at the prison.

"I thought we were friends," Andrea responded, unaware entirely of their conversation. "You're friends who left me behind, alone, on a farm overrun with Walkers…but I didn't realize that made me a bad guy."

"You've been living in Woodbury?" Hershel asked, apparently feeling he should get involved in the conversation. "With that man? The Governor?"

Andrea looked around at everyone.

"Yeah," she said. "I mean…I was in Woodbury. But I wasn't alone there."

"You're with the Governor?" Rick asked, though it was clearly a rhetorical question. "What do you want here? Because you're with us or you're with him."

Daryl almost felt sorry for the blonde. There was probably a lot to take in here, depending on how much she knew from her own "companions" in Woodbury.

"I don't understand why there's a him and an us," Andrea said. "I don't understand what's going on. I came here on my own. I came to find out what's going on."

"He don't know you here?" Merle asked, his voice booming out in the small space.

Andrea shook her head.

"What happened?" Andrea asked.

"He tortured Glenn and Maggie," Hershel said. "There's another woman here, in the prison, that he tortured almost to death. He's killing people and he'll kill more."

Andrea shook her head at his words.

"Phillip is trying to help people," Andrea said. "He's trying to build a better…"

"He tried to kill me," Michonne said. "Or he tried to _have_ me killed. He wants me dead. He wants Merle dead. He wants the woman we've got dead. It's just a matter of time, Andrea, he's going to want you dead too."

Daryl didn't expect Michonne to leave as abruptly as she did, but the words barely escaped her mouth before she left the room and headed back out into the courtyard. Daryl watched Andrea follow after her with her eyes, her mouth open slightly.

"I don't understand…" she stuttered out.

Merle chuckled.

"Ain't the first time that shit's happened," Merle said. "You ridin' the devil's dick, that make it better?"

"What's going on? Is everything OK?"

Daryl heard Sophia's voice calling out. She was "trapped" in the part of the prison that they all shared under strict orders not to come out. Carol wasn't strong enough to be on her feet for long periods of time yet and Daryl had ordered the girl to stay with her so that she wouldn't end up interacting with anyone who might not be too kind to her, especially while they were in another part of the prison planning their own secret attack on Woodbury.

As soon as he heard her calling, he abandoned the scene, figuring one way or another it would work itself out. Regardless of what happened, though, he already knew that they'd be making their attempt on the Governor's life.

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"It don't matter one damn bit if she stays or she goes," Merle said in response to Rick's overreaction to Michonne's insistence that Andrea not return to Woodbury at the present.

"You're the reason that he's coming here! You and Michonne…Daryl and that woman! I don't even know what happened in that place, but he would have left us alone. He wouldn't have even known we were here if it hadn't been for you kidnapping Maggie and Glenn!" Rick yelled back into his face.

"First off," Merle said, "back the fuck outta my face. I done what I done to try and find my brother. I wouldn'ta never had to do a single damn thing…wouldn'ta had ta know shit about the damn Governor if your ass hadn't left me handcuffed to a fuckin' roof!"

Rick stared at him, pointed a finger in his face like he was going to really tell him something, and then he turned sharply and stormed off, his boots crunching on the ground. He turned back, once, like he was going to say something, and Merle stood there casually and waited on whatever it might be.

"We came back for you," Rick offered, his voice low enough that the sound barely travelled to Merle's ears.

"Too little, too damn late," Merle said. "I 'magine Blondie feels the same damn way about it…"

Rick's only response to that was to continue the trip he'd started before.

Merle knew the man was pissed. What he found humorous, though, was that he suspected Rick's real problem was that he felt he was losing control. And losing control? That was enough to piss any man off. But Rick wasn't even concerned about the fact that, to anyone with eyes, he seemed to be losing control of his senses…no. Rick was concerned because he felt like he was losing control of his "group". He felt like he was losing control of his merry gang of misfits that would follow him to the face of the Earth.

And Merle felt like he was one of the only ones who realized that Rick had never had the control that he thought he'd had and that, for the ones that really did follow him, there was no way to lose them because they were too weak or too stupid to function on their own.

"You didn't have to do that," Michonne said, her shoes crunching as well as she walked up behind Merle from where she'd been standing, Andrea behind her like she intended to block Rick's ability to reach the blonde. "I could have handled it."

Merle turned and hummed at her.

"We're even," Merle said.

Michonne narrowed her eyes at him and licked her teeth when she smiled in a manner that Merle would have said was a way of saying she wanted a little something more from him than "support" in their half-baked plans…he would have said that, but he had long since figured out that her interest in Andrea went far beyond that of a buddy.

He chuckled to himself at the fleeting thought that crossed his mind, a statement that he bit back for the moment, because he figured the two of them going at it? Might be a sight to see.

"You think we're even for your ass trying to kill me?" Michonne asked. "Just because you got Rick to leave us the hell alone when I could have done it anyway?"

Merle considered a moment and then shook his head at her.

"No," he said. "We're even. Just that. Even. We're the same. And in Rick's eyes? We both brought hell to his front door in one way or another. Governor ain't gonna rest until we're dead, or he is. Rick ain't gonna rest 'til he runs us both outta here on a rail…and whoever else might question his shaky fuckin' authority."

"What's happened here?" Andrea asked, stepping forward from where she'd been standing in a rush. "What's going on? Rick? Is he alright?"

Merle shifted his eyes toward her.

"He weren't never alright," Merle said. "An' he ain't sorry he cut'cha fuckin' ass loose. You too, An-drea. You're on the damn choppin' block. We goin' back. Tomorrow night. Gonna kill ya boyfriend."

"He's not my _boyfriend_!" Andrea protested.

Merle chuckled.

"Gonna kill him just the damn same," Merle said. "You with us or you with him? 'Cause you better know where the fuck you fall…I ain't savin' ya damn ass you go with him."

Merle sucked his teeth and glanced back toward Michonne. She was watching him like a hawk. She was watching like she was waiting to attack him the moment he so much as put a toe in the wrong place. He smirked at her again.

She was a bitch…and he liked that about her.

"And…just so ya know? He's gonna kill ya if you go back to Woodbury. An' he's gonna do it so you spend a helluva lot more time wishin' you was dead than you gonna actually get to spend gettin' there," Merle said.

Andrea looked, behind the confusion she'd been wearing the whole time she'd been at the prison, a little terrified. She looked at Michonne and shook her head slightly. It was clearly more an act of not knowing what to do rather than actual negation.

It was always a shock to people when they got their bubble busted…no matter how many times it happened.

"What is happening?" Andrea asked Michonne.

"Merle's right," Michonne said. She swallowed and Merle thought it looked a little more difficult for her than usual. Maybe it was simply admitting he was right that was hard for her to stomach. Or maybe it was the fact that she was standing face to face with Andrea after whatever dyke drama had gone down between the two of them…the version he knew was skewed by the Governor's perspective of things so he didn't fully believe any of it. "You have to decide. You're with us and you stay, or you're with him and you go now."

Michonne shook her head at Andrea.

"I won't tell you anything else…not until you've made your choice," Michonne said.

She glanced away from Andrea for a moment and then brought her eyes back to the woman. She swallowed again and Merle knew now that the swallowing problem had nothing to do with him. It was about the blonde.

"If you stay? I won't mention…it…again," Michonne said. She glanced toward Merle as if to gauge how much he knew. He kept his face set. "If you go? You won't see me again."

Merle hummed to himself, even accidentally, because he hadn't expected her to say it.

"Your call," Merle offered, quieter than before.

Andrea looked between them, the furrow of confusion between her brows almost permanent now. And then she turned her eyes to Michonne.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm staying."

Merle saw Michonne's chest heave slightly…relief or something else coming over her.

"Take a bath," Merle said. "Eat some shit. Get some damn rest and fill her ass in."

He directed his words toward Michonne but glanced back and forth between her and Andrea from time to time while he spoke.

"Tomorrow? Ladies? We're goin' on us a lil' damn trip," Merle said.

And then he started back toward the prison, cutting his eyes down toward the fence where the nutcase, Rick, was doing his own version of dancing through the damn tulips, to see if he couldn't harass the little blonde girl out of enough of the gruel they called food for he and Sophia both to have enough to get full for a night.


	14. Chapter 14

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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"I wish you weren't doing this," Carol said.

She was sitting, alone in the cell at the moment, with Daryl and he'd just finished detailing out for her, with as much detail as it seemed that he was going to use, what he was planning to do with the others the following night when they went to Woodbury.

"Daryl, he's _dangerous_," Carol said.

It was dark in the cell and Carol had the wick turned low on the lantern that they were using. Carol could barely make out Daryl's features even though the man sat beside her on the bed now. He expected her to go to sleep now, like telling her about what sounded like a suicide mission might double as a bedtime story, and she couldn't imagine sleeping at all.

Even talking about the Governor made her pulse quicken and made her breathing shallow. Thinking about him was even worse. She had no problem bringing the image of his face to her mind's eye. It was almost always there, smirking at her, taunting her…telling her what he would do to her if she didn't tell him things she had no way of knowing.

And one of those things? One of those things was where Ed was, and now she knew that he'd known all along that he was dead. But that hadn't stopped him from doing whatever he pleased.

"He's about to be dead," Daryl said quietly. "That's what the hell the crazy bastard's gonna be."

"What if he…" Carol stopped.

And she almost laughed to herself at the thought that the words stuck in her throat like they were barbed. Her husband was dead. The man she'd vowed to love for life…to love until death parted them…was dead. He'd died somewhere, she didn't know where, probably alone and in a violent manner.

And yet she wasn't sad. She hadn't cried for him, and she honestly doubted she ever would. She felt, in some ways, she'd cried every tear allotted to him while she was married to him. She'd cried them all while she prayed he'd be the man that she had once thought him to be.

But it stuck in her throat when she thought about what might happen to Daryl if he went back, as he planned to do, to Woodbury with a plan to kill this man. She swallowed against the sharp and sticking words.

"What if he…were to…kill you?" Carol asked, finally spitting out the unpleasant tasting words.

She could see Daryl's eyes glittering with the low light of the lamp as he looked at her. She could make out enough of his expression to see that he was working at his lower lip with his teeth. She could hear him swallow.

"Then I reckon I'll be dead," he offered quietly.

And despite the fact that he seemed a little nervous? Carol noticed that his voice came out clear and strong, even if muffled by his efforts to keep it low. If he was nervous, as she'd somewhat suspected he was when he'd sat down beside her to tell her everything he had to say, then it wasn't about dying.

They sat quietly for a moment in the darkness and Daryl broke the silence between them when he had apparently thought about what he wanted to say for a moment.

"If we don't come back," he said. "If none of us come back? You gonna have to stay here with Sophia. There ain't no way to make it out there on ya own. But'cha need to be payin' attention 'cause this group? They say they lookin' out for everyone, but they ain't always doin' it. Keep an eye on Rick and keep Sophia close."

Carol swallowed back her own feelings for a moment. The thought of being left alone with this group was almost terrifying. She knew none of them. She only knew what she'd heard of them and that was pretty much that they weren't to be trusted. She knew, from what she'd heard, that they'd left Merle behind somewhere…that because of that he'd lost his arm. She knew that there was another woman in the prison now that had been in Woodbury, and apparently she'd ended up there because they'd left her behind somewhere. She knew that they were content to keep them in this part of the prison, somewhere away from the rest of them, because they seemed to think that they were dangerous. She knew that the group didn't trust, and she knew that they weren't to be trusted.

And it terrified her to think of being left alone with them.

Because at least she knew that she could trust Daryl and she could trust Merle…and she felt like she could trust anyone that they trusted. But they were taking everyone else with them.

"Maybe Sophia and I should go," Carol offered.

"No," Daryl said quickly. "No," he said, a little more calmly than he had the first time. "You can't go and we ain't takin' the chance he gets his hands on you again. But…when we get back?"

Carol hummed to keep him talking.

"When we get back, there's a chance we gonna have to get outta here. Rick…he don't much like havin' Merle here and I don't think he's gonna like havin' Andrea here. He's gonna want us outta here and he's gonna get rid of all of us, one way or another," Daryl said.

"But I don't understand why," Carol started.

Daryl cut her off again.

"Ain't got the time or the energy to explain that," he said. "Ain't gonna try right now no way."

Carol assumed that meant that one day he intended to explain it to her. She assumed that meant that one day he planned on telling her everything she wanted to know about him and about how he'd ended up here.

He cleared his throat.

"Point is," Daryl said. "Soon as you ready to go? Soon as you think you strong enough? We're plannin' on skipping right on outta here. We're gonna go."

"Go where?" Carol asked.

Daryl cleared his throat again.

"Don't matter," he said. "We'll know when we get there. But we're goin', just the same. You can stay if you want, but…"

"No!" Carol said as quickly as he'd cut her off before. It surprised her to hear her voice coming out of her mouth the way that it did. "No," she said, mindful to soften her own voice. "If you're going, we're going. But…why don't we go now? I'm well enough to travel. I can make it to wherever we're going. We can go and we can just leave the Governor behind. Y'all don't have to go back to Woodbury."

Daryl hummed.

"We don't go back? He's always gonna be there. Merle said he don't give up easy. Not until he's got what he wants, even if what he wants is people dead," Daryl said. "And…if Merle an' Michonne did bring him here? When we leave? When we cut from this group? We do it clean. We don't leave them with no mess we made. We'll go and we'll kill the damn crazy ass and then we movin' out as soon as you can."

"I can handle it," Carol said. "Whenever you need me to, whenever we have to…tonight if we have to."

Daryl hummed again.

"No," he said. "There ain't no rush, not right now. Just…remember what I said? Somethin' happens? Stay with the group, but…watch out for you an' watch out for Sophia."

Carol felt, for a moment, almost like she couldn't breathe. Again the ache in her chest that she'd felt, when she'd been swallowing down words she barely got down, returned. But this time it returned with a vengeance. It returned with a sense of urgency that almost made her skin itch.

She shook her head at him, even if he couldn't see it with the lack of light in the space, because she couldn't speak for a moment as she fought the sensations going on inside her…feelings that scared her because they were unexpected and they were intense. They were too intense for her to even begin to understand.

"I don't want you to die," Carol said. "I don't want him to kill you."

She heard Daryl swallowing. What she had to say next, what she felt almost driven to say, was harder than anything else she'd gotten out.

"I don't want to lose you," she said.

As soon as she said it, she almost wished she could take it back. The things she was feeling? Maybe they weren't real. Maybe her attachment to Daryl was nothing more than gratitude for saving her life and the life of her daughter. Maybe her feelings were nothing more than that gratitude manifesting itself in an usual manner.

And maybe she meant nothing to him beyond someone that he'd saved because he was a good man who would save a woman and a child who needed it.

Maybe her feelings were much stronger than his. And maybe she'd made him uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her regret at having said something to make him uncomfortable overwhelming her at the moment.

Daryl remained silent for a moment, long enough for Carol to grow tense, but then he finally spoke again.

"For what?" He asked.

Carol hummed at him.

"You sorry…'cause you don't want me to die? Or you sorry 'cause you said it and you don't mean it?" Daryl asked.

Carol was struck by both his tone of voice and by the words. It was a sincere question. And it struck Carol that he would ask if she hadn't meant what she said, if she wanted to take it back because the words hadn't been words that she really felt…and that she knew what he meant. Because she'd known, too, the feeling of people who said things that simply didn't go with how they acted until you finally realized that they actually meant nothing of what they said.

The only difference was, instead of thinking it like she often had, Daryl had actually come out and asked her if she'd been sorry for what might have been a lie.

"I meant what I said," Carol responded. "I don't want you to die…"

"You'd be OK," Daryl said. "I die? You'll be fine. Woulda been fine on your own. Just needed someone to get you outta there. Anyone coulda done it."

"No," Carol said. "Anyone couldn't have done it…and anyone wouldn't have done it. But you did."

Daryl made an odd sort of noise, a cross between a hum and a groan perhaps, and shifted himself around on the bed.

And Carol took a chance, wondering if she would regret it or if it was going to be something he wouldn't want, and reached to touch his face with her fingertips. She'd touched him, in the past few days, a good bit, but it had always been touching in regard to him helping her. It had never been touching him simply to touch him.

He reached a hand up and caught her hand as she touched his face, but he didn't push her away. He didn't say anything at all.

And Carol thought she heard him breathing a little heavier than before at just the touch.

She moved, slowly but with determination, and brought herself closer to him, touching her lips delicately to his as she did so. And she pulled away, leaving the soft and innocent kiss on his lips as she backed up to gauge his reaction.

He was breathing harder, she knew that, but he didn't say anything for a moment.

Carol felt like apologizing again, but she didn't. She simply sat there, staring at him, waiting to see what he would do, and he surprised her.

Because he reached to touch her face, brushing his fingertips from her cheekbones to her hair line. Carol closed her eyes to the touch for a moment, the scratch of his fingers on her skin not entirely gentle, but not entirely objectionable either.

And then he leaned in and timidly returned the kiss that she'd given him, in much the same manner, except that, like his touch, his kiss was a little rougher than maybe what she'd offered him. Rough or not, though, Carol enjoyed the kiss and she barely parted her lips to him, trying to let him know that if he wanted more, she wanted to give it.

Daryl backed away quickly, almost like he'd been shot, and he got to his feet in one quick movement, clearing his throat as he did. Carol almost felt reprimanded.

"I…" she stuttered out, but she never finished it.

Daryl scuffed his shoe on the cement floor and immediately went through his pocket, finding a cigarette. Carol saw the flame shake slightly when he moved it to the tip.

"You…uh…you gotta lotta bruises still," Daryl said. "Ribs are bruised if they ain't broke. Got stitches."

Carol bit her lip, almost amused. He wasn't rejecting her, not exactly…he wasn't saying he didn't like the kiss. He was going to tell her that she wasn't _well_ enough to kiss him.

He wasn't rejecting her, not in the purest form, but there was clearly something there that had sent him off the bed like a shot.

"I'm fine," she offered quietly, trying to soothe over his concern if it was real.

"You need to sleep," Daryl said, leaning against the brick wall for a second and then immediately standing up again. "You…need to sleep an' I gotta…check on Merle and Sophia. So you…sleep."

"You need to sleep too," Carol said.

"I'ma just…" Daryl pointed at the cell door.

"Check on Merle and Sophia?" Carol asked.

Daryl started out the cell, humming.

"Daryl?" Carol called. He stopped outside the cell, nothing showing his location beyond the glow of the cigarette in the darkness, and backed up, his feet shuffling on the dirty floor. He hummed to let her know he was there. "Thank you for the kiss," Carol said.

And she smiled to herself, amused and even more intrigued by Daryl than she'd been before, when he grunted and she heard him scuffle away, presumably to check on Merle and Sophia.


	15. Chapter 15

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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The profound darkness of the night without the benefit of the electric glow that, noticed or unnoticed before, had once radiated over almost all of the world was enough to lead anyone to believe, if only for a moment, that they had fallen into blindness. As Daryl navigated the way back to Woodbury with his comrades, he was almost doubtful, at times, that they were even with him. Every one of them disappeared entirely into the black of the night and reappeared only now and again when they stepped, accidentally or not, into some pocket of faint light reflecting from somewhere.

They were keeping silent as much as possible. Michonne, with little more than her katana and some sheet she and Andrea had ripped and braided together, had created leashed pets out of Walkers for each of them to tug along with them. The Walkers afforded them something like camouflage and kept them, while they travelled in the blackness, from having to deal with other Walkers.

The first time that Daryl had encountered a Walker, shortly after leaving the prison, he'd been nervous and a little doubtful of whether or not this would work, but the presence of his pet repelled the other Walker successfully to the point that he didn't have to so much as draw his knife and risk calling attention to himself for the other to lumber off in the other direction.

So with their Walker pets in tow, it appeared that they would be able to move toward Woodbury undisturbed as long as they didn't, themselves, draw any unwanted attention.

And the silence gave them all plenty of time to think about whatever it might be that they were thinking about.

Daryl was sure, because of the nature of what they were going to do, that most of his companions were thinking, in one way or another, about the fact that they might very well, tonight, learn what it felt like to die. They might, if they were unlucky…and it seemed that no one was lucky these days...be marching right now toward their execution.

Daryl thought about it too, but the thought was only brief and it was fleeting.

He might die tonight. He'd thought about dying before. Once or twice? Here and there? He'd feared death. He'd feared it enough that the thought of it would make him do anything simply to avoid it…he'd kill himself not to die if it were possible. And, once or twice as well, he'd almost welcomed death. He'd almost thought that the lucky ones were the bastards that were already gone…the lucky ones escaped hell on Earth for something that, surely unless they'd been just horrible people, had to be better than this.

But tonight?

Tonight he had a strange relationship with the death that he might be going to meet. He didn't fear it and he didn't welcome it. Tonight, it seemed, like it oddly didn't even exist to him. It almost felt, if only for this fleeting night, like he was sure that he was immortal…or like simply couldn't be bothered by death. He couldn't be, not at this moment, bothered to take the time to lie down and die, even if death came calling for him.

Because he felt, and the sensation was as equally strange to him as his sudden relationship with death, like he had things to do. He felt like he wasn't _done_. And even if he wasn't sure what it was that he had yet to finish…he simply didn't have the time to waste pussyfooting around with death when he hadn't finished what he clearly needed to finish.

He was thinking, instead of so much about the maker that he might very well meet before the sun broke through the sky again, about the kiss that he'd left cooling on Carol's lips the night before.

When he'd kissed her back, he'd almost felt like he wasn't in control of what he was doing. He had felt like the kiss was something that simply had to happen. He had to return, to her, the kiss that she'd given him. The impulse, really, had only been broken when he'd felt her part her lips to him as though to deepen the kiss and he'd come, crashing back hard, into his senses.

Daryl wasn't the kind of man who was ever kissed by women who planted soft, sweet kisses on his lips. He wasn't the kind of man that returned them in the same manner. He wasn't, even, the kind of man who kissed women who were _mothers_…and especially if they were mothers who actually wanted and knew where their children were.

Admittedly, he'd only kissed maybe two or three women in his life, and he'd only done anything beyond that with one, but still they weren't the kind of woman that Carol clearly was and clearly always _had been_.

Daryl had never been that kind of man at all. He'd never even been the kind of man that women like that would so much as waste their time looking at twice unless they were memorizing what he looked like because they feared they'd have to describe him later as a suspect for some crime or another that he'd never committed.

_But last night he had felt like that kind of man. Carol had made him feel like kissing her was, not only the most natural thing to do at the moment, but the only thing he could do. _

And Daryl had no idea what it meant…not in the long run, or at least not in the longest run that they could expect out of this life. But he was curious to find out. And his feelings over the kiss had, essentially, kept him from finding out all throughout the day…he'd avoided Carol as much as he possibly could other than to tell her that they were leaving and that he would be back, because he was almost certain, now, that he _would _be back…so that he knew that tonight he would have to simply tell death, whether it had ears to him or not, that he couldn't go with him for some time now.

As they neared Woodbury, the large walls of the town looming even blacker than the black they'd grown accustomed to, the darkness was pierced by the faint lights, here and there, that lit up the "guard stations" around the walls of the place.

Michonne hummed quietly at everyone, as she'd promised she would, when she felt that they were close enough to the town to stop. Daryl followed her, able to find her silhouette now that there was something of the light around them, and passed off the rope to his Walker along with everyone else's. She tied them, as she'd said she would, to a tree to leave them ready to lead them, hopefully victorious, back to the prison.

And then Daryl and the others ducked deeper into the shadows to watch as Andrea, responsible for the next part of the plan, stepped forward to do what she had to do.

She walked, openly, toward the gates of the town and whistled sharply upward, drawing the attention of those on the wall.

Suddenly, a blinding light illuminated the space and made Andrea almost disappear entirely from Daryl's sight that was no longer accustomed to the brightness. Those that were on the wall shined a light directly at the blonde and she held her hands up in the traditional stance one took to surrender.

"Who is it?" A voice called down from the wall.

"It's Andrea," Andrea responded. "Open the gates? Let me in?"

From their hiding place, Daryl saw a Walker moving toward Andrea. None of them dared to help her, though, not wanting to give away their presence.

"Andrea?" The voice on the wall called. "What are you doing out there?"

Daryl could hear Andrea's sarcasm even at the distance.

"I went for a walk," she said. "I had some things to do. Things for the Governor. Can you open the gates? Let me in."

The other person on the wall did something of a walk around. Even though he knew they were hidden, Daryl crouched a little lower, almost afraid that they could see them better than they thought.

"You're alone?" The person doing the walk around asked. "We're not supposed to open the gates after dark."

"Do you see anyone else?" Andrea responded sharply. She stepped away from her spotlight and it followed her while she took down the Walker that had approached her. She turned back toward the wall, shielding her eyes from the brightness with her arm. "Do I have to tell the Governor you left me out here to get eaten by Walkers?"

There seemed to actually be some debate on the matter between the wall watchers and then they disappeared. It wasn't much later and Andrea walked toward the gates, disappearing inside.

"That's our cue," Michonne whispered.

And if Daryl and Merle hadn't been paying attention, they would have lost her for the speed that she used to travel, low to the ground, toward the area she and Merle had already decided was the best location for them to enter, unnoticed, while Andrea created the best diversion she could inside and attempted, somehow, not to get herself killed if she were to actually encounter the Governor himself.

When they reached the location to enter, they found it as abandoned as Merle assumed it would be. The night guards for that part of the fence, he'd told them and told them correctly, were really very uninterested in their positions and didn't take them seriously. They often slipped off, just after they were "checked in" to their positions, to do other things that were of much more interest to them. It left only a small part of the fences unguarded and, therefore, attention had never really been drawn to it. Merle, actually, only knew it himself because he'd managed to end up drinking with one of the assholes one night.

Once they were inside, they stayed close together and close to buildings. Merle took over as the "guide" for the three of them and Daryl kept glancing in the direction of the gates to try and gauge what was happening with Andrea. At this point he knew that she'd drawn some attention, but it appeared to only be the attention of those that had opened the gates for her and one or two other people who had come from some other unseen location.

Woodbury was barely lit, flickering fire torches here and there the only light that was visible, and the three of them were able to move undetected with a good deal of ease. The plan, it seemed, was going to be much easier than they'd thought. At this rate they would simply be strolling up to the Governor's apartment, letting themselves right in his front door, and killing him in his sleep without another soul being any wiser.

Merle indicated the building that was the Governor's "home" when they were pressed flat against the wall of the building across the "street" from it.

"That's his place," Merle said, mostly for Daryl's benefit since Michonne, apparently, already knew this information. "Second floor's his apartment."

"Which one?" Daryl asked.

"Second damn floor, Daryl," Merle hissed back. "How many second floors ya ass see?"

"The apartments in that building are full floor apartments," Michonne said.

"Who lives in the bottom?" Daryl asked.

"No damn body," Merle responded. "It's sorta…an office. Meetin' place. But at night? He has guards take turns passin' the night down there."

"How many?" Daryl asked.

"Not more'n three usually," Merle said. "If we're lucky, they're piss drunk an' playin' cards. We can walk right the hell up on 'em an' they ain't gonna see it comin'."

"An' if we ain't?" Daryl asked.

Merle hummed.

"If we ain't lucky? There's gonna be a fight…an' we gon' run the damn risk a' wakin' him an' everybody else up too," Merle said. "So we hopin' for door number one."

"I'm going in first," Michonne said. "I'm quieter and faster. Even if there are three in there, the first indication that two of them are going to have that I'm there is the smell of blood from the other's throat."

Daryl looked at Merle regarding Michonne in the darkness. Finally he hummed quietly and shook his head.

"No," he said. "I'll go in an' clear up the downstairs. Andrea oughta be headin' her ass over this way an' she'll cover me. You an' Daryl gotta take care a' the Governor. Go up the damn fire escape while I'm keepin' the fuckin' boys busy."

Michonne made a noise of protest and Merle held up his hands and chuckled at her.

"I can't climb the ladder, princess…not as damn fast as your ass," Merle growled back. "Don't fuck around. Get in, get it done, get out…we'll all meet on the other damn side a' the wall we don't see each other before."

"Andrea…" Michonne said.

Merle hummed.

"Kill the fuckin' Governor," he growled. "And I'll get her ass out…one way or another."

Michonne regarded Merle for a moment, but Daryl nudged her forward slightly. That's what tonight was about. That's what they'd all agreed on. Tonight was about trust and it was about everybody laying their ass on the line and believing every single other person would be there to pull them out if they needed it.

"Let's go," Daryl hissed at Michonne. "Sooner we get in? Sooner we get the hell out and don't never see this damn place again."

Merle seemed to take that as his cue and darted, without another word, across the street. Daryl pushed Michonne toward the fire escape that Merle had indicated, determined to get the job done…a job he was reminding himself was going to be far easier than they'd ever anticipated…and get out so that they returned, as they planned, to the prison before the sun ever came up to shine its light on their whereabouts.


	16. Chapter 16

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl knew the moment he followed Michonne through the window, since she'd insisted on going first into the Governor's quarters, that in some way they'd been outsmarted, even if it was purely on accident.

The apartment was empty. There were a few burning electric bulbs lighting up the place, lights that might have fooled them into believing the madman was home, but there wasn't anyone there.

Daryl stood near the window and watched as Michonne did a thorough, and really almost crazed, inspection of the whole place. He thought, from her intense focus, that she might go so far as the check under the bed and in the cupboards to see if the man was hiding in those places. When she came back, looking slightly defeated, Daryl gestured back toward the window.

"He isn't here, but that don't mean we're not gonna find him," Daryl said. "Just means we better get to looking elsewhere because he's out there with Merle and Andrea insteada in here with us."

Michonne seemed to snap out of her disappointment and into action again at that point because she was out the window and down the ladder before Daryl was even fully aware that they were legitimately on the move again. He followed her, not bothering to close the window or hide any sign of their intrusion, and bumped into the woman at the bottom of their ladder.

She was already peering through windows at the bottom.

"Nobody's in there," Michonne said quietly. "Merle either went in there and finished what he was doing…or he never went in there at all."

"Any of the Governor's men in there?" Daryl asked.

"I don't see anything moving," Michonne said.

"Means Merle's prob'ly already been there, but let's check it out to make sure," Daryl directed.

Michonne nodded at him, her face barely illuminated by what light spilled around the curtains that halfway attempted to cover the windows, and then she led the way for them into the lower level of the building, both of them walking through the door as though they belonged there instead of as though they were part of a small assassination group for the Governor.

It didn't matter anyway. Merle's handiwork was evident. He'd been there and he was gone. There were three men in the space and, from the looks of it, he'd cut the throats of two of them before the third had even noticed his presence and initiated a struggle. Two of them, throats slashed, were slumped in the very chairs they'd been sitting in, leaned over the cards they'd been looking at, but the third had evidently put up something of a fight and was lying dead in the entrance way to the building.

Maybe he'd been trying to get out to warn someone? Or maybe he'd been trying to get some message to the Governor. Or, maybe? Maybe he'd simply been responding to something that was happening outside and Merle had surprised him too.

Daryl wasn't enough of a detective to swear either way how things had happened. What he knew, though, was that three men were dead in the space, all had been neatly put down before they could turn, and no one alive was left there. This building could be marked off their list of concerns.

Without the need to even speak about what came next, Daryl and Michonne both left the space. Daryl was glad that Michonne had some working knowledge of Woodbury, because he wouldn't have a clue of where to go next or, truthfully, exactly how to get back to where they'd entered at.

Daryl had no problem, because of that, letting Michonne lead the entire show. He was more than happy to follow her lead and trust her judgment since he sincerely had no suggestion to make that seemed more appropriate than what she deemed best. Silently, she led him through the small town, tight against the walls, and he followed, keeping low and in the shadows.

As they neared the location that she was evidently guiding them toward in the darkness, though, Daryl felt his blood run almost icy in his veins. Recognition and realization flooded him. Even in the blackness he knew that the place they were heading was the building with the dark, tight, hallways. He imagined they were underground…he'd thought they were, at least…but now he wasn't sure and it didn't matter.

It was the equivalent of a slaughterhouse in his mind. It was the place where they'd found Carol barely on the cusp of being alive.

And, apparently, Michonne thought it would be a place to find the Governor.

Before they could get there, though, Daryl heard a voice speaking. It wasn't booming, exactly, but it was clear that it was addressing a number of people.

"Do not be alarmed," the voice said. "That's what they want. They want us to be afraid. They want to ruin our daily lives. I assure you all that it's under control. We have everything under control and you can go back home, lock your doors, and rest easy. You're all safe and the situation will be handled."

Daryl hissed at Michonne as she continued on toward the building. She stopped and turned back to him.

"That's him, ain't it?" Daryl asked.

Michonne hummed.

"Well we gonna kill him or ain't we?" Daryl asked.

"In front of everyone? They'll mob us," Michonne said. "He's got Andrea, and he's probably got Merle too. And if he does? They're there."

She gestured toward the building.

Daryl looked back at the man he could see at a distance, placing himself in front of the small crowd gathered to address their concerns.

"I could hit him from here," Daryl said. "Could hit him from a lotta damn places. Ain't it you who said they can't kill you if they don't see you?"

"It's suicide to try to kill him in front of everyone," Michonne hissed back. "You won't make it out alive if you do. He's got them all brainwashed. They're sheep."

"And sheep are real damn dumb," Daryl commented. "You go on. I'll catch up with you all."

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Carol kept herself wrapped around Sophia in the bed, the cover slightly over the girl's eyes so that the coming day and the slight change of lighting it produced in the prison wouldn't alert her immediately to the fact that the night had passed and no one had returned from the "secret mission" that they'd undertaken.

Carol was beginning, herself, to panic a little. They had declared that they'd return with the darkness, just as they'd left with it. The whole plan wasn't going to take very long and they were going to leave Woodbury before the sun rose and shed any light on who it had been that had come in the night and killed the Governor.

With the sun coming up outside, Carol felt concern washing over her. Any number of things could have gone wrong and there would be no way of knowing which of them was the case without someone returning to Woodbury to find out for themselves. And, honestly, they'd never discussed that possibility, so Carol wasn't exactly sure how that would happen.

She was turning over in her mind the possibilities of what might happen, trying to will herself to remain calm so that no change in her body would alert Sophia and wake her from her sleep, when she heard noises coming from outside of her cell and outside, even, from the part of the prison that they were calling home.

She listened to it a moment, decided it sounded like some kind of heated discussion, and decided to disturb Sophia's rest to find out what was happening. She tried, at first, to ease around the girl, but she woke her in the process.

"Mama?" Sophia asked, still somewhat asleep. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, sweetheart," Carol responded quickly. "I need you to stay here, though, OK? Stay here and wait for me?"

"Are they back yet?" Sophia asked.

"I'm not sure," Carol said. "But I want you to stay right here. Don't leave the cell. Not until I tell you to."

Sophia, at the moment, was too sleepy to argue and Carol managed to get herself out of the bed. She covered her daughter with the blankets as best she could and walked out of the cell, holding to the prison walls as she walked toward the noises, steadying herself until she got over the stiffness of having risen out of the bed enough that she could walk unassisted.

Carol didn't know these people. She hardly knew any of them by name and she didn't really care to know any of them from what she'd heard. She didn't fear, really, any of them besides Rick, but she was wary of them because of their allegiance to the man. She knew Andrea and Michonne, by name and appearance mostly, because she'd seen them in Woodbury and been briefly reintroduced to them before they'd left, but mostly she felt alone in the world with her daughter, Merle, and Daryl.

It was Rick that was having a heated discussion with Michonne. Some of the unnamed members of Rick's group stood around watching.

"You had no business going back there in the first place! Now they'll come because you couldn't leave well enough alone!" Rick spat at Michonne. "You brought this all here!"

Carol only knew the woman by name, really. She and Andrea had barely arrived in Woodbury when everything had happened with Ed. All Carol knew of her was that she was mostly quiet and seemed angry at the world.

Right now, Carol could see she was angry with Rick.

"He was coming with or without our return!" Michonne snarled back at Rick. "You're a fool if you believed he wouldn't. He won't be coming now. Anyone that does? Let them come."

Carol was trying, frantically, to decide what might be happening. She started to panic that Michonne was the only one to return, when Andrea came shuffling in from outside, Merle just behind her. It was evident that Andrea had been in some sort of scuffle, Merle too, though Michonne looked at first glance to be untouched.

And then Carol felt her pulse pick up a notch and she felt a sharp stab in her chest.

What if Daryl was the only one who didn't return? What if they'd managed to kill the Governor only to lose Daryl?

It didn't feel like a fair trade. It truly didn't…remove the greatest that evil that Carol knew in the world for the moment in exchange for what she now felt like to be someone so good? Maybe that was the balance of things, but it didn't seem fair.

"What happened?" She cried out toward them all, apparently surprising everyone by making it known that she was both present and capable of speech. "What happened? Where's Daryl?"

It was Merle that walked toward her, addressing her when everyone else was simply staring at her and taking in the full effect of whatever had happened, since she'd evidently missed some kind of information that had been given before she'd become aware of the voices at all, coupled with her newly announced presence.

Merle smirked at her, wiped his face with his hand, and looked around at everyone else before he turned back at her and the smirk returned.

"The hell's the matter with all y'all? Act like you done seen a damn ghost…" Merle said, directing the comment at everyone before he directly addressed Carol. He sucked his teeth. "My lil' brother's outside. Comin' right on back in a minute…got a lil' held up bringin' comp'ny. Best start packin' ya bags. Looks like we just about worn out our welcome here."

With that, leaving everyone to stand and stare at one another, and offering Carol no more explanation, Merle walked around Carol and back toward the part of the prison they were, evidently very temporarily, calling home and Carol heard him call Sophia's name in a somewhat muffled tone as he went.

Carol was distracted, though, because just as she watched Merle pass and turned her sight back to the space everyone else was occupying, Daryl came through the door, evidence of some sort of fight on his face as well, with other people that she recognized, at least by their faces.

And maybe it would have been against her better judgment to do what she did, if she'd been using any judgment at all in the moment, but Carol let her impulses take over control and she rushed toward Daryl as quickly as her body would carry her, wrapping her arms around him and sinking into him with some relief when she felt the warm embrace of his arms finding their way around her in return.

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**AN: So, if you haven't guessed, this story isn't ending with Woodbury. As usual, I give the disclaimer that we're going "off the grid" of the show and will be incorporating some elements from the show, as well as some from the comics, but for the most part we're on our own. **


	17. Chapter 17

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl could have gone back to his cell that night after he'd excused himself, from everyone who might wonder about his whereabouts and from the conversations he no longer wanted to have with Rick and his "friends" about what had happened and what had yet to happen, to shower off the disgust of the day that he was wearing. Except he realized that he wasn't even sure, not anymore, where his cell actually was. Most of his stuff was in the same place that it had always been, at least the stuff that he didn't use often and wouldn't miss if he'd lost it all in an instant, but that had never really felt like _his place_, and it felt even less like it now.

So Daryl had chosen to return to the cell where Carol slept to reclaim, for the night, the bunk above her where he felt most comfortable.

But before he ever made it there, Carol…apparently anticipating his return…had bombarded him with a number of questions about what had happened while they were in Woodbury.

He wished, even as he told her what had happened and answered her questions, that it was a more exciting story to tell.

Because what had really happened had surprised all of them in various ways. Michonne, concerned about Merle and Andrea, had gone off to the building that Daryl had been reluctant to re-enter. He had been sure, though, that if he could get into a position, hidden by the shadows of the town, he could take one good shot to drop the man that made so many nightmares into truth.

And he had managed it. He had stilled the Governor, right in the middle of his speech about keeping everyone safe, with a shot directly to the head. And in the chaos that followed, the people completely unaware that it was really Daryl who was keeping them safe, Daryl had slipped off toward the building where he expected to find his three companions.

He had not expected, really, that they would have to fight their way out of the town. He had not expected that they would have to fight, inside the building, some of the Governor's men to even get back above ground, and he hadn't expected that, in the chaos of the Governor's assassination, they would have to fight through the streets when people rioted against each other because they didn't know what else to do.

But it seemed that the death of the Governor, along with accomplishing their original goal, had created for them a perfect way to get out of Woodbury, fairly unnoticed and barely even roughed up by their encounters. They'd only really been stopped, in reality, when they'd reached the wall to climb over and run into a small gathering of people there that had been working the wall and come down, bunching together, to try and sort out what was causing the mass confusion.

And after a very straightforward, and perhaps overly simplified, explanation of what had happened and why, they'd not only let Daryl and the others pass, but they'd joined them. Once on their way back to the prison, too, they were happy for the additions to the group because the noise from Woodbury had stirred up a small herd of nearby Walkers that they had to fight their way through to even begin to think of making it back.

And just like that?

The Governor was dead. His kingdom, as he seemed to think of Woodbury, had fallen. They were free from him.

But Rick wanted them to go because he saw them as trouble. He saw Merle only for what he believed him to be. He saw Daryl as someone who wasn't to be trusted because he put his trust in his brother. He saw Michonne as the potentially explosive mystery and Andrea as some sort of snake in the grass.

And the list went on, because Rick saw everyone who wasn't entirely and solely dedicated to his protection and the protection of his family as someone not to be trusted and not to be treated even as a fully functioning human being that was capable of thoughts and feelings.

"Where are we going to go?" Carol asked, her voice barely above a whisper at that point. It had grown softer as the conversation had gone on and Daryl had lowered his with the changing of her tone. He assumed that she didn't want their conversation to carry or that she was lowering her voice out of respect for anyone who was likely sleeping around them.

"You don't gotta go nowhere," Daryl said. "Prob'ly safer here than anything we'll find out there. We don't even know what we're gonna find. If you and Soph wanna stay here? I won't hold it against you. Nobody's gonna hold it against you. Rick can't say you brought trouble into his life when you come here unconscious and against your will…and Soph ain't nothing but a kid."

Daryl said the words, but even as he said them he was conflicted about them. He wanted her to be safe. He wanted Sophia to be safe. After what had happened with Governor? They deserved safety and rest. They deserved some kind of security. But he knew that he was going to have to move on because Rick was going to drum them out of town and, if not tomorrow, it would be soon. He would have to go, and if she stayed? It meant leaving her behind.

And he didn't want to leave her behind.

"Do you want me to stay?" Carol asked him.

Daryl got up quickly from the bed. He put as much distance between them as the wall on the other side of the cell would allow…just enough distance that if she extended her arm and leaned forward a little she could touch him from where she was sitting. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms tight across his chest.

"Want you to be safe," he said. He couldn't lie, but he felt like he couldn't tell her to stay or to go. Neither, really, felt safe…but he supposed that the walls of the prison were safer than no walls at all. He opted, then, for the only truth he felt he could tell at the moment.

"Do you want me to go?" Carol asked.

Daryl stared at her. He didn't know how to answer the question that was really just the first flipped on its head.

He swallowed.

"Want you to be safe," he repeated. He shook his head at her. "I ain't your boss. And I don't own you. I won't tell you what to do and I won't make your decisions for you."

"I didn't ask you to make a decision for me," Carol said, her tone changing slightly. She shook her head gently at him tipped it to the side. "I asked you what _you_ wanted. Do _you_ want me to stay or do you want me to go? My decision is my own."

Daryl felt his stomach do an odd sort of turn at the sound of her voice and the words that she spoke.

She was sincerely asking him, even if he'd misinterpreted her the first time, what he wanted. She wasn't asking him to tell her what to do. She wasn't asking him to make her promises about what would be better for her or her child in the long run. She wasn't, apparently, even asking him if they were all going to be fine or if they were going to make it out of this. She was only asking him what he _wanted_.

And people seldom asked Daryl what he actually wanted.

Daryl slumped a little under the weight of trying to answer a question that felt so unbelievably foreign to him. Carol pushed herself up from the bed, her feet faltering slightly with the fact that her body wasn't quite as good at balancing as it was when she was stronger or would be again, as though she was coming closer to him. Daryl reached a hand out and caught her under the elbow quickly, steadying her for the few moments that she needed the support, and then moving his hand away to let her stand alone once she'd gotten her legs back under control.

"Do you want me to stay, or do you want me to go?" Carol repeated, closing some of the already small distance between the two of them.

Daryl swallowed at the proximity, remembering the kiss from before and remembering the way she'd felt, sinking into his arms of her own volition just as he made an appearance in the prison.

"You ain't strong enough to go nowhere," Daryl admitted. He shook his head at her. "You ain't been five days outta that assholes damn torture chamber. You ain't fit to travel."

Carol stared at him and did nothing more for a moment than to blink in his direction.

"If I go," Carol said, "then I'll be strong enough to go. I'll make it. I know I can if it's what I need to do. But you still haven't answered my question…what do you want? Daryl?"

He frowned at her, but unfortunately she was now like a dog with a bone. She wasn't going to let go for anything. She was going to wait out an answer.

And since he felt like sleeping there tonight and didn't want to go elsewhere, it seemed that he was going to have to give her one.

He sucked his teeth.

"I want you to go," he admitted, his stomach turning a little more at the admittance. He didn't know, really, if it was a good or a bad thing for either of them that he wanted her to go. Beyond Merle? There hadn't been anyone that he thought he would have hated to leave behind with the kind of intensity with which he didn't want to leave her.

"Then I'll go," Carol said, a smile crossing her lips. She sighed and looked around the tight little cell that they were in. "If you want me to go? Then I'll go. I don't know these people, and there's nothing really here for me anyway. If what you all say is true? I'd spend my life looking over my shoulder…and Sophia would too."

Daryl felt his pulse pick up, even if he didn't know what his heart had decided to up and get excited about all of a sudden.

"You'll be lookin' over your shoulder out there too," he said.

Carol nodded her head slightly.

"But we're going to have others looking with us," Carol said.

"Might not be nothin' for ya if you go neither," Daryl said. "We don't know what's out there. There's a chance you ain't gonna find nothin' out there that's any better than what'cha got here."

Carol nodded her head slightly once more and stepped just a bit more. In reaction, Daryl backed against the brick wall, as far as he was allowed to go by the physical restrictions of the cell.

"You're going to be out there," Carol said. She shrugged slightly. "It's been enough for me here. It's been all I've really had here…I guess it'll be more than enough out there too."

"You really want to go?" Daryl asked.

Carol nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "I really do. And…I don't just want to go, _I'm going_. So even if you left me behind? Because you thought I couldn't keep up? Sophia and I would catch up to you. It might take us a day or two…or maybe even three. But we'd catch up."

Daryl chuckled at her. Her facial expression showed clearly, too, that she was teasing with him, even if she meant the words that she was saying. She'd narrowed her eyes just enough to show that she was waiting for a response from him, and lips said that she was amused with herself and trying to hide it.

"We ain't leaving you to wonder around out there alone," he said. "You don't even know where the hell you are…don't wanna put that much stress on the kid to act as your guide."

Carol let her smile spread a little with his response.

"When do we leave?" She asked, the teasing gone for the moment. "Tomorrow?"

Daryl hummed in consideration.

"Soon," he said. "You rest. Try to…heal up? Build a little strength? Take it easy? I'ma see if we can't negotiate a couple days with Rick. Then we'll move on, see where there is to go."

At his suggestion that she should rest and should build up her strength, like strength was something collected together and stored up, Carol returned to the prison cot she'd been basically living in since her arrival at the prison and sat down, almost as a show of obedience from someone who had been, earlier, asserting something like dominance…and if not dominance? It had been the capability of independence at least.

Daryl stepped toward the bed again, not feeling like he had anything to hide at the moment, and put his hand on the top bunk, rocking on his feet to lean down over her a moment.

"Just like that?" He asked. "You listen to me and get back in the bed?"

Carol smiled.

"I wanted to," she said. "You were right. I'm tired."

Daryl gnawed his lip a moment at the way she was peering up at him, smiling slightly, looking so satisfied with herself and so _pleased_ at the moment…like even in the darkest phase the world had ever been in she was the happiest that anyone could ever be.

And he took a chance and dipped his head, kissing her fully on the lips and, his hand on the metal frame of the bed still holding him from toppling into her, deepened the kiss when she invited him by parting her lips and teasing him with the tip of her tongue.

When he broke the kiss, his breath a little more ragged than before, Daryl quickly made his way to the foot of the bed and hoisted himself up to get on the top bunk without a word. Once he'd wiggled around and settled down on the mattress, he heard Carol laugh below him and then she blew out the lamp that had lit the space.

"What was that all about?" She asked.

"It's what I wanted to do," Daryl commented, his words sent up toward the ceiling he could barely see in the darkness of the cell.


	18. Chapter 18

**AN: Here we go, another chapter.**

**It's a bit of a transition chapter.**

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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Carol had been determined to bite back any of the discomfort she felt as she went about "building up" her strength over the next few days. If they were going to leave, they were going to leave. She wasn't going to be the one, the only one, that slowed them down.

She had felt, for much of her life, like a burden to someone.

She'd felt, at times, like a burden to her parents. She'd heard them, even when she was young, discuss money problems, their relationship issues…everything in hushed tones that they thought kept secrets, but her ears had always been able to hear them even through the walls.

And she'd thought, when she married Ed, that things would be different. She would move from her life of being a burden to her parents to being…what? A gift to her husband? A treasure? Something he would cherish. Just by merit of being _his_ she would pay him for the things he did.

Because she never finished school. She started, but she never finished. He wanted her to marry him. He couldn't wait for her to finish. And it wasn't going to matter anyway because, when they were married, he didn't want his wife working.

And it had seemed to her, at first, like a romantic proposal that he was making. He didn't want her to work because he wanted her to be there for him. He wanted her building this beautiful and happy home that they would share. He wanted her to feel like just her presence was enough to keep him going and make him happy to do whatever it took to provide for them.

Reality had been a sharp slap in the face, figuratively and literally, when she'd realized that Ed didn't want her to finish her education so that he could forever throw it at her. He didn't want her to work because he was paranoid about her being in the presence of others. He didn't want her to work so that she had nothing to contribute to the household besides what she did there…what she thought once would be enough, but clearly it hadn't been.

He'd wanted to keep her, just as he had, so that he could _remind_ her that she was a burden. So that he could remind her that he could do without her but that he'd clipped her wings enough she feared she couldn't do without him. He wanted to remind her that she was a burden that she should be grateful that he was willing to shoulder.

The world, then, had turned upside down and more than ever she was a burden. She was slow and she was weak. She lacked the ability to take care of herself and others. She couldn't even, most days at least, set up a tent the way that he liked.

Carol was tired of being other people's burdens.

In some ways, she felt like she'd been a burden to Daryl already. He'd taken care of her, even though he'd really had no reason to have to do such a thing, and she had nothing with which to repay him if it wasn't the occasional soft kiss that he came searching out throughout the day…quick and soft, sometimes rough and hungry…but never anything more. He seemed to simply want the kiss, the occasional word of thanks or praise throwing him just a little—though the more she said it the less it seemed to throw him, and then he would disappear from her sight again until he came back once more seeking out, without asking and only showing his intent by getting near her, another of the kisses.

Carol felt like it was a paltry payment at any rate for nursing her as he did. But Daryl seemed to want it more than anything else, and she had little else to offer him.

But even knowing the payment of praise and a few soft kisses wasn't much in comparison, Daryl made her feel oddly like she'd never been a burden to him. He made her feel like he'd never noticed the weight he was carrying when tending to her needs.

And so she determined that she wouldn't be heavy enough to make him feel the weight.

Healed entirely or not, capable or not, terrified or not…leaving with this group was a chance at a new life. It was a chance for Carol to stand up, to feel on equal footing with others, and to prove to them and, mostly, to herself that she was no longer anybody's burden.

Her thoughts about herself and what she was worth to the world had, for so very long, been dark and depressing…weighing her down each step of the way.

But as she packed the small bag that Daryl had found with her with the few belongings she'd acquired from unknown people at the prison and swore that she was ready for their departure as soon as the sun came up, she felt like the weight was somewhat lifted. She felt like the same sun that was rising on the road outside was rising in her.

When they'd struck out, Carol had felt at a disadvantage from the start. She'd come to the prison with nothing and had no weapon, even if she'd felt like she could really use one well. Rick had sworn that they had nothing to spare and finally all that she'd gotten to call her own was a small knife to be worn at a belt and half-rusted machete with a broken handle that would, undoubtedly, snap if put to too much of a test.

The knife she'd given to Sophia, telling her not to play with it but wanting her to have something in the case that she had to defend herself, and Carol had kept the broken machete.

"We'll find you something," Daryl said. "First place we hit? Anything'll be better'n that…just stick close until we find it."

His words had been somewhat comforting to Carol, but it hadn't erased entirely the fact that she felt, stepping right out of the gates, that she was already required to rely entirely on those around her, even if they weren't all equally prepared or armed either.

Immediately outside of the prison, though, Carol wasn't sure she needed a weapon. She wasn't sure any of them did.

The woman they called Michonne, someone Carol thought she vaguely remembered seeing in Woodbury, had cleared the way before anyone else had drawn a weapon. She'd simply sliced the sword she had through the air, cutting down the Walkers in front of her, as Daryl referred to them, with the same ease that a hot knife might have slid through butter.

And Carol couldn't decide if her awe for the woman or the tinge of jealousy she felt at thinking that someone could be so confident that they took care of themselves, and everyone else, so easily was stronger.

At the very least, Carol thought, she was travelling with this person…and maybe one day she might learn to do something well enough to impress her, or at least to get her attention beyond the glances that Michonne threw her way as she walked with Sophia just to her side.

"I hate to be the one to point this out," Andrea, a woman that Carol had met a few times at best, pointed out from where she was walking just behind Michonne, "but we really need some kind of plan for this beyond we'll see where the road takes us. It's gotta take us somewhere to spend the night or else we're going to need tents."

"I don't see why we can't just go the fuck back to Woodbury," Merle responded from his position in their group, bringing up the rear. "Governor's dead. We prob'ly show up now, smoke's cleared…they'll appoint my ass king and we're set."

"I don't think you'd make a very good king. Kings are supposed to be dignified," Sophia responded. Carol elbowed her, but Merle just chuckled at her, as did Daryl.

"I'm fuckin' dignified," Merle mumbled, but Carol could tell that the only reason he bothered to respond was to get a smile from Sophia who watched him over her shoulder as they walked.

"We're not going back to Woodbury because there was, no doubt, a bounty on our heads," Michonne replied, never looking back at any of them. "They might kill as soon as we get in the gates, or they might just let us get comfortable there…it's best to just keep looking."

"But Mich," Andrea said, "this feels a little like déjà vu. What are we looking for…and for the love of everything, please don't say we'll know when we find it."

"We're lookin' for somewhere to pass the night," Daryl said. "Don't gotta be damn Buckingham Palace, but it's gotta be big enough we can all fit in it. Gotta have some kinda walls and a roof. Best if we got water nearby. We'll clean the place out for weapons, eat what the hell we got and what we can find…I'ma try to shoot somethin' while we go…and we'll figure out there where the hell we go from here. But if 'Chonne was to say we'd know it when we see it? She'd be pretty much right. Ain't no other way of knowing nothing and we done went to the CDC on hope."

Michonne stopped her forward progress and, by default, the rest of them slowed and stopped too, coming together in a clump in the middle of the highway that was abandoned by everything but ghosts and the occasional meandering Walker in search of a meal.

"We'll know when we see it," she said. "Tonight? We pick one of these farmhouses, off the road enough not to draw attention if people are passing by. We stay there. And I say we do it soon. Andrea and I could travel from sun up to sun down, but we don't know yet how we all work together on the road. It's best not to get caught setting up camp with the sun down until we do."

Carol listened to everyone speak and tried to take it all in. Until now she hadn't heard people talk about what they would and wouldn't do, what they should and shouldn't do, or even how to navigate this world without everything seeming like a screaming blur of chaos. She'd been brought to Woodbury by Ed…all the way under his guard and kept deaf and blind to everything important…and she'd been brought to the prison by Daryl in the pitch black of unconsciousness.

She didn't know how to live in this world, but she was going to learn.

And, apparently, the first thing to learn was that it was better not to travel at night. She didn't know if it had to do with Walkers themselves or if it only had to do with the inability to see things before they were there, but it was something that no one in the group really wanted to do.

They travelled with the light.

"One house is as good as the next," Daryl said to Michonne.

He looked around even from where they were standing. There wasn't much surrounding them at that moment, and Carol assumed that the few houses they'd passed had been turned down for one reason or another. Maybe, though, it just taken this far for them to decide that this was something to be discussed.

Daryl sucked his teeth and pointed.

"Down there," he said, everyone turning to look in the direction he signaled. "We'll stop there. Ain't nobody just passing through gonna bother us there. Gotta come lookin' to find us and then we know what the hell we dealin' with anyway."

"I don't see anything," Andrea said, giving voice to Carol's exact thoughts.

"There's a cut in them trees," Daryl said. "You'll see when we get there. Gonna be a drive more'n likely. And a drive's gonna lead to a house…a house of some damn body didn't want snooping and strange visits. We'll spend the night there."

Michonne hummed.

"There's bound to be water," she said. "Even if it's just a dirty little creek."

"Boil it," Daryl said, "and it'll drink just fine for a night."

Carol stood still, her hand on Sophia's shoulder, and waited with everyone. She didn't feel she had anything to contribute and she read everyone else's silence as debate over whether or not this was the best decision.

Though she was tired and would welcome the stop, the short walk already being enough to make her aware that her body had suffered more damage than she'd really thought about, she would walk all night if that's what they wanted to do.

Their musings or considerations or whatever they were, though, were interrupted when three Walkers came slowly making their way out of the woods at the side of the road, all of them growling in hunger at the presence of such an appealing meal as their group made. Their appearance was enough to break the spell everyone seemed to be under and Carol freed her machete from the loop that Daryl had made for it out of some leather he'd found.

She never got to use it, though, because Merle stepped forward and, using the blade he'd stolen from somewhere on their trip to Woodbury and duct taped to the metal prosthetic he wore, took down two of them, pushing the third off of him enough that Andrea dropped it in the meantime.

He smirked at her, Merle's only offer of thanks, and then gestured in the direction that Daryl had pointed out they would most likely find a house.

"What the hell y'all standin' around tryin' to be bait for? Let's get to the damn house and see if lil' brother here can't hunt us up a damn steak 'fore dark!" He barked, picking up his steps to change his position from follower to leader.

And Carol, along with everyone else for the moment, decided it was well enough and followed after him toward what would be their home until at least the sun rose again.


	19. Chapter 19

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here. **

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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Carol stood to the side, pretty much silently "put there" and waited with Sophia and Andrea while the house they were going to stay in was cleaned out. It afforded them one Walker that was absolutely disgusting and had, apparently, ended everything before the world had ended it for him…but that was before they all knew that they had to aim for the brain. It was before they all knew, through one source or another, that when you died? No matter how it happened? You would come back as one of the creatures without someone putting something through your brain.

They helped him the rest of the way "out" before they moved the body outside.

Exploring the house, Carol discovered that there was a functioning gas stove. It meant they could eat something without having to build a fire, something they'd debated about when they were first coming in after showing the resident of the house out. So she'd offered to cook something and put together probably the worst planned feast in history out of the contents of the cupboard while Merle and Daryl had gone to put out snares so that they might have fresh meat for their breakfast.

Then, enough compliments given to Carol over the meal that, if she hadn't prepared it herself, she might have thought it was a feast fit for kings, she'd warmed up water that they'd brought to the house in buckets, dirty enough that she hoped boiling it would make it sanitary enough to bathe in before the light of day let them find something more suitable for bathing and drinking, and then it was time for everyone to turn in.

The farmhouse had three bedrooms, though one of them was small enough that it might have originally had some other purpose. That one was immediately given to Sophia. Without any debate about it, Michonne and Andrea had taken another room.

And Carol had been sent to the other bedroom to sleep.

She'd considered arguing with the Dixon brothers over who might sleep in the room and who might sleep in the living room, somewhat keeping guard even though the doors were all barred with furniture, but in the end the feeling of fatigue and the promise of a truly comfortable bed won out over her need to be polite and she'd retired to the room.

She hadn't been in bed long enough to fully fall asleep, though, when she heard the creaking of the door as it slowly opened and she sat up, scrambling around in the almost pitch black of the room to try and get her hands on the camping lantern that she'd extinguished and put on the floor beside the bed.

"Hey…it's just me," she heard.

Daryl pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped in with his own light source, though his was only a candle he'd apparently found somewhere in the house.

"Is everything OK?" Carol asked.

"What wouldn't be OK?" He asked, shielding the flame with his hand and blocking the light so that it didn't shine as brightly as it could be. "Doors is locked and blocked. Every damn body's asleep."

He stood there, not entirely in the room and not entirely out, shielding the candle flame with his hand and apparently waiting. But Carol wasn't sure, exactly, what he was waiting for.

"Are you sure nothing's wrong, Daryl?" Carol asked.

"You need anything?" Daryl asked. He looked around the room. Carol hummed at him. She supposed it was something he was growing used to asking her, though she really hoped that he wouldn't have to ask her that for long…or that he wouldn't feel like he _had_ to ask her that. "Your bed OK? Comfortable?" He asked.

Carol felt slightly amused and quickly ran her tongue over her lips to erase whatever amusement might show there.

"Do you want to share?" She asked. "There's room for someone else."

She patted the entire half a bed next to her, moving over a little closer to the edge to accentuate the size of the bed even more, in an effort to let him know that it wasn't an empty invitation.

Daryl sighed. It was the kind of sigh that someone makes just before they're about to tell you something that you don't want to hear or tell you something that's a big confession for them. The sound of air rushing out of someone like that, surprisingly enough, could have enough of a tone behind it to make Carol's stomach lurch slightly.

"What's wrong?" She asked, just as Daryl geared up to make his confession.

Still awkwardly holding his shielded candle and standing in the same location, Daryl launched into what he had to say.

"I don't want to bother you," he said. "Figured you'd be comfortable in here. Might get a decent night's sleep…'cause I know you ain't supposed to be travelling yet. But Merle said he figured there was enough room in here for two. Sent me in here saying if I didn't go he was gonna…and I thought, since sometimes you get a little…standoffish with Merle…you might prefer if it was me."

Carol bit her lip again, this time having to suck the bottom one entirely into her mouth before she felt like the amusement creeping up inside her was under control.

He'd been sleeping her cell at the prison. As far as she knew, he might have been sleeping in the small prison cot with her when she couldn't remember a thing. And, even thinking that, it didn't bother her at all.

To be honest? She almost missed having him in the room for the short time she'd been in there alone.

And maybe Merle had threatened to come and crawl into bed with her, but she wondered if some of it…some little piece that he didn't want to admit…might have really been Daryl that wanted to ask permission for access.

Whatever it was, though, she was more than willing to grant it.

"Daryl," Carol said, "come on and go to bed? The mattress is comfortable and it's very big, so I think that both of us will be a lot more comfortable than we were in prison."

Daryl, although somewhat reluctantly, came to the bed. He blew the candle stub out that he'd been guarding and Carol heard it thump on the floor somewhere. He settled down in next to her, bringing with him the scent of the soap that they'd found to wash off with in true sponge bath fashion and the smell of candle smoke that lingered, no doubt, on his hands from holding them too close to the flame as he shifted them back and forth.

When he was clearly settled in, letting out something of a satisfied sigh that matched the noise Carol was certain she'd made at getting into the comfortable bed, Carol rolled toward him.

"You know," she said. "You never did give me a kiss goodnight tonight. You haven't missed a night of giving them to me."

She couldn't see more than a slight silhouette of him, though she could feel him close to her. She hoped that she hadn't overstepped something. She felt like there was a lot between them that hadn't really been discussed yet, and she didn't want to go too far for his expectations, even if it was in keeping with what, even if not discussed, seemed fairly established.

He hummed.

"Wouldn't wanna break with tradition," he commented. "But I can't even see you."

And Carol smiled to herself, enjoying the slight tinge of humor to his voice, as she brought her fingertips up to where she supposed his face was, and felt out his lips. He surprised her, for a moment, by kissing at her fingertips. Then she moved her face to where her fingers led her and kissed him, accepting the kiss he prompted it to change to by moving into her.

And later that night, when he moved closer to her in his sleep and she woke for a moment with the weight of his arm on her body…Carol didn't move it away.

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

"What the hell you so damn jumpy for?" Merle asked Daryl. "You got you some damn lil' honeypot…you got'cha one. She ain't too bad. All that green get good and gone outta her face? I know what she looked like before. Mighta gone for it myself…didn't figure the asshole she was married to woulda killed her for it."

"Shit Merle," Daryl responded. "Look around you. We're pretty much in the pits of hell right now. We're all walking around and don't got a damn clue where we're going. We're just hoping the craziest sons of a bitches we're gonna meet are either dead or behind us. Something like that? It's the last thing on anybody's mind."

Daryl was surprised that Merle was being so agreeable about things. Of course, if you talked to Merle about interest in women, he translated that straight to being an interest in pussy…and Merle was always happy to be supportive when it came to pussy, no matter who was talking about it.

And maybe, since Daryl had always been something of a letdown in that department to Merle, he was even happier to talk to him because he felt like they had something they could—well, _relate_ to each other with, maybe.

Merle chuckled.

"That's where you wrong, lil' brother," Merle said. "That's one of the first damn things on people's minds…most people. You don't think Blondie an' Midnight weren't up there makin' like a pair a' cats in heat last night? Sophia thought the fuckin' house was haunted. Come down in the middle a' the night to make sure I heard it too."

Merle laughed.

"You was in that room all shut up all damn night long…you been pinin' after her…an' you ain't done nothin'? Fuck, boy?" Merle said.

Daryl picked at the knot he was supposed to be securing around the already dead rabbits they'd gathered from their snares. The knot was plenty tight, but he was stalling the getting back to the farmhouse with breakfast. He also knew that Merle knew he was stalling, and that's why his brother was standing, leaned against a tree, serving as a lookout for Walkers or anything else that might come stumbling through.

"I'm kissing her," Daryl said.

Merle hummed at him.

"And what? You gonna just…kiss her? The rest of ya damn life?" Merle asked.

Daryl felt a little struck, but it was mostly because he'd said nothing about the "rest of his life" to Merle, and Merle wasn't one to generally think about anything like that with a woman, but he hadn't hesitated at all in saying it to Daryl.

"Ain't nobody said nothin' about the rest of my life," Daryl commented.

Merle chuckled.

"You always was the sweet one," Merle said. "And you ain't never liked to share a damn thing you had with nobody else. Figure this ain't gonna be no different."

"Life don't last too long these days, Merle," Daryl said.

He finally stood up, then, and quit the charade of checking knots. They had four rabbits. It wouldn't be enough to leave everyone stuffed, but it would be enough to keep them from starving until their next meal. If they were lucky, and if they stayed another night or two like they were planning, they might even bag a deer.

Daryl picked up the rabbits, all tied together, and threw them over his shoulder, holding the end of the rope with three fingers he had threaded through the loops. He nodded in the direction of the house with his head and, before starting that way, reached a hand out toward Merle to take the lighter he was struggling with.

Daryl lit his brother's cigarette and returned the lighter with nothing but an understood thanks passing between them, and then he started the walk back.

"Life don't last too long, brother," Merle said. "But you wrong again. Ain't just these fuckin' days that shit's true. Figure out what the hell you want, though…or you gonna just be kissin' for fuckin' ever."

Daryl felt a little annoyed at Merle's tone of voice. It was a tone of voice that Merle had used his whole life. It was the tone of voice he kept especially for the times when he felt like he was teaching Daryl some grand moral lesson…something to live by, Merle called it.

"Kissin' forever ain't the worst damn thing ever happened to nobody," Daryl growled. Immediately he was unhappy with his choice of words, but it was too late. They were out of his mouth so he had to stick with it, even if he knew…and he was right…that it was going to get a laugh out of Merle.

"Might not be," Merle responded. "But it sure ain't the best neither."


End file.
